Tea Portion Capsule Particle Sizing for Fast Clean Brewing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional portion capsules for brewing tea beverages in brewing chamber machines result in a low-quality tea beverage due to the short interaction time between tea substance and brewing water, leading to inefficient brewing and potential contamination from tea substrate.
Innovation Solution
A beverage substance with specific particle sizes between 500 microns and 1500 microns, optimized for efficient brewing and filtration, combined with a thermally pretreated and anti-foam agent, ensuring rapid and clean brewing with a high extract content and aroma development.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the brewing time is shortened to meet user expectations (1-1.5 minutes), then the brewing speed increases, but the interaction time between tea substance and brewing water becomes insufficient, resulting in poor tea beverage quality
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the particle size parameter of the tea substance to a specific range (500-1500 microns). This parameter modification allows the tea to brew efficiently in short time while maintaining quality, as the optimized particle size provides sufficient surface area for extraction without being so fine as to cause substrate contamination or require longer brewing times.
2Productivity
If smaller particle sizes are used to increase surface area for efficient brewing, then the brewing efficiency improves, but the filtration becomes more difficult and the tea beverage may be contaminated by beverage substrate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent optimizes the particle size parameter to a specific range (500-1500 microns) that balances brewing efficiency with filtration performance. This parameter selection ensures sufficient surface area for rapid extraction while preventing substrate particles from passing through the filter element into the final beverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different quality requirements to different aspects of the particle size: large enough to filter easily but small enough to provide sufficient surface area. This local quality approach allows the same particle size parameter to simultaneously satisfy both brewing efficiency and filtration cleanliness requirements.
3Reliability
If more tea raw material is used to improve extract content, then the beverage quality improves, but the amount of substance increases and the brewing process becomes less efficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the particle size parameter to optimize the surface area to mass ratio. This allows achieving high extract content and good beverage quality with less tea raw material, as the optimized particle size maximizes the extraction efficiency per unit mass of tea.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution enables efficient, rapid, and clean brewing of high-quality tea beverages with improved flavor and aroma, reducing the risk of substrate contamination and germ presence, while minimizing the amount of tea raw material used.
Implementation Method 1
the beverage substance is flowed through by the extraction liquid during an extraction process, so that a beverage extract, here a coffee beverage, is formed
Implementation Method 2
The filter element's sieve function prevents the beverage substance from also getting into the second area
Data Source
Figure 1~2
Figure 3~4
AI summary
A beverage substance for producing a tea beverage is proposed, wherein the beverage substance is intended to be stored in a portion capsule and to be infused in the portion capsule by means of hot water introduced under pressure into the portion capsule, wherein the beverage substance is substantially particulate and at least in part comprises tea, and wherein the beverage substance has a mean particle size of between 500 micrometres and 1,500 micrometres.