Journal of Food Engineering 82 (2007) 276–283

www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng

Process technology for production of soluble tea powder

V.R. Sinija *, H.N. Mishra, S. Bal
Post Harvest Technology Centre, Agricultural & Food Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal 721 302, India

Received 22 November 2006; received in revised form 27 January 2007; accepted 29 January 2007
Available online 8 February 2007

Abstract

Instant tea is presently manufactured by spray/freeze drying of the concentrated brew of processed tea leaves/dust and the drawbacks
of this method are inferior quality, high cost and energy. A novel technique has been developed for the production of instant/soluble tea
powder from the expressed juice of green leaves. After plucking, the leaves are crushed and juice pressed out. The juice is then subjected
to fermentation under specified conditions. The fermented juice is steamed, centrifuged and freeze-dried to get instant tea powder. The
pressed leaf residue is subjected to fermentation and drying for preparation of tea granules. The instant tea produced is of good liquoring
characteristics and various constituents are also in the acceptable range [Theaflavin (TF) to Thearubigin (TR) ratio – 10.71 for instant tea
(IT) and 12.12 for tea granules (TG), Caffeine content 40.4 mg/cup of IT and 96 mg per cup of TG]. The tea granules produced is com-
parable to CTC (crushing, tearing & curling) tea in quality and liquoring characteristics. There is considerable savings in the economy as
the juice and residue are converted into value added products in this method.
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Instant tea; Soluble tea; Beverages; Non-leaf tea products; Freeze-dried tea

1. Introduction gered by the consumption of tea, it has the potential to

Tea is one of the most pleasant and popular drinks con-
sumed by two-third of the world’s population. It is not
only the most popular and one of the oldest known bever-
ages in the world but also an antioxidative agent available
in everyday life, which may help to prevent a wide variety
of diseases such as cancers and heart diseases (Luczaj &
Skrzydlewska, 2005; Yang, 2002). The tea industry in India
occupies an important place and plays a useful part in the
national economy. Today at the global level, India is not
only the largest producer of tea but also one of the major
exporters of different forms of tea (Kidwai, 1999). Tea pro-
cessing has had many incarnations over the last 100 years
from loose tea to blended, to packet teas, to tea bags and
finally to instant teas, ready-to-drink teas and flavored
teas. As the penetrating vision of science and technology
probes deeper the chemical and metabolic processes trig-
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 3222 281323; fax: +91 3222 282244.
E-mail address: sinijav@iitkgp.ac.in (V.R. Sinija).
be the beverage of the 21st century (Boriah, 1997).
There are a number of ways in which tea can be pre-
pared, but usually it is made into black, green and oolong
tea. Instant tea, a product dried from tea infusion was first
produced in England, from black tea in 1940. Although its
production has been under study for a long time, instant
tea is the major problem facing the tea industry now a
day, with regard to both its production and acceptance
(Wherkoven, 1974). Most of the existing methods for the
production of instant tea use hot water extraction. Hindu-
stan Lever Limited has developed and patented a process
for preparing instant green tea by heating the fresh leaf
to a temperature sufficient to inactivate the enzymes and
then the leaf is comminuted, extracted with hot water
and dried by conventional means like spray-drying or
freeze-drying. Another method developed by the Tea
Research Institute of Ceylon (Wickremasinghe, 1977) for
the production of cold water soluble tea concentrates and
powders in which tea leaves are extracted with hot water
and the extract is subjected to gel filtration to effect the sep-
aration of non-phenolic compounds like chlorophylls, pro-

0260-8774/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2007.01.024
 V.R. Sinija et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 82 (2007) 276–283
teins, polypeptides and polysaccharides, while retaining
polyphenolic compounds. Then resultant filtrate is concen-
trated to obtain a cold water soluble powder.
There are certain difficulties to be solved in producing
instant tea, which would give a beverage comparable with
an ordinary tea infusion. The problems are connected with
the liquoring characteristics, flavor or aroma and with tea
quality itself. In the general method of extraction by boil-
ing water, the flavor of this product is generally poor.
When hot infusion cools down, it becomes turbid and par-
ticles settle down on prolonged cooling. This is called tea
cream and decreaming is thus necessary, since it affects
the clarity and appearance of cold, water-soluble instant
tea. This can either be made soluble by chemical and enzy-
mic means or discarded as a waste by physical means in the
manufacture of instant tea. In addition to the quality prob-
lems of instant tea like low aroma, poor taste and insuffi-
cient cold-water solubility, low productivity is also one of
the important problems remaining (Pintaro, 1977). More-
over, when instant tea is made from prepared black tea,
the process is highly expensive and at the same time energy
intensive also (Schott, 1988).
This investigation was undertaken with the objectives of
developing a new process technology for the preparation of
soluble tea powder and optimizing the process parameters
involved during the different stages of production of instant
tea (IT). Efforts are also made to prepare black tea granules
(TG) from pressed residues of leaves obtained after juice
extraction.
2. Materials and methods
Fresh green top two leaves and the terminal bud of tea
bush were plucked from the experimental farm of Agricul-
tural & Food Engineering Department, Indian Institute of
Technology, Kharagpur, India. The weight of the fresh
leaves was determined by a laboratory balance with an
accuracy of 0.01 g and the moisture content was measured
by oven drying method (AOAC, 1995).
Sequential steps involved in processing are given below.
Plucked leaves were crushed to a fine paste in a domestic
mixer grinder (Sumeet brand). Experiments were carried
out for different crushing periods (1–4 min) at medium
speed (2540 rpm) in order to find out the conditions for
maximum juice recovery with maximum amount of poly-
phenols and total solids content. The crushed leaf (paste)
samples were pressed in a laboratory press for the expres-
sion of juice. The press consists of a cylinder and a screw
type piston with handle. A flat disc with holes was pro-
vided at the bottom of the cylinder for sieving. The
amount of juice recovered, total solids (gravimetric
method, BIS 1981) and total polyphenols in juice were
measured by standard procedures. The weight, moisture
content and the total polyphenols of the pressed leaf resi-
due were also determined. The juice as well as the pressed
leaf residue samples was separately subjected to fermenta-
tion under ambient conditions (30–32 °C and 80–85%
277
RH). During fermentation, oxygen gas was incorporated
into the juice (0.5 m3/h). Fermentation was carried out
for different fermentation periods starting from 0.5 to
3 h. Under or over fermentation causes poor quality teas
(Owuor & Obanda, 2001; Wherkoven, 1974). Optimum
fermentation time can be found out by a method based
on the amount of theaflavin formed during fermentation
(Muthumani & Kumar, 2007). For this, samples were col-
lected at 10 min interval during fermentation and the opti-
cal density values for these samples at 460 nm were
determined by a spectrophotometer (Spectronic Genesys
2, Model No. CAT 33600902 SN3NE 9107006). Two sam-
ples taken at each time interval were used to calculate the
mean optical density value corresponding to that time. The
optimum fermentation time corresponds to the maximum
theaflavin production (Lakshminarayanan & Ramasw-
amy, 1978).
In order to arrest the fermentation at the right time
steam at a pressure of 1–1.2 kg/cm2 (temperature 104–
106 °C) was introduced into the fermenting juice for
1 min. This increased the temperature of the juice to
approximately 70–80 °C, which caused the inactivation of
the enzymes responsible for the oxidation reactions. The
juice was then subjected to centrifugation in a laboratory
centrifuge (R-24 type) at 10,000 rpm for 20 min, to remove
the colloidal and other suspended solid particles, which
cause turbidity in the tea brew. Finally, the juice was
freeze-dried (6–8 h, Labconco FreeZone, Model 79480) to
IT having a final moisture content of 3–5% (w.b.)
2.1. Preparation of black tea from residue
The pressed leaf residue was spread evenly (thickness
not more than 1 cm) and kept under a fan at ambient con-
ditions for different fermentation periods ranging from 0.5
to 3 h. The samples were stirred intermittently to improve
incorporation of oxygen into the sample mass, which
enhanced the fermentation process. Optimum fermentation
time was determined in the same way as for IT samples.
The fermented samples were then dried either by vacuum
drying (50 °C and 400 mm Hg for 16–19 h) or hot air dry-
ing (50 °C, 12–16 h) methods to get the tea granules. The
weight and the moisture content of the dried samples were
measured.
Estimation of total polyphenols was carried out with
Folin ciocalteau reagent. Phenols react with phosphomo-
lybdic acid in F.C. reagent in alkaline medium and pro-
duce a blue colored complex (Sadasivam & Manickam,
1996). Absorbance of the sample was measured at
760 nm and amount of polyphenols determined by using
gallic acid as standard. The method followed for the deter-
mination of caffeine was based on the extraction of caf-
feine using chloroform and measurement of its
absorbance in the UV region at 276.5 nm (Ranganna,
1980). Hunterlab colorimeter was used to determine the
color and percentage brightness of various samples and
thereby find out the amount required to produce a cup
278 V.R. Sinija et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 82 (2007) 276–283

of tea, which has the same percentage of brightness, and
color values as that of the tea available in the market.
TF, TR and high polymeric substances (HPS) were deter-
mined by the method followed in tea industries (UPASI
Tea Science Department Bulletin, 1978). Tea brew was
prepared by mixing 4 g of made tea in 100 ml of distilled
water taken in a 500 ml conical flask and heated in a boil-
ing water bath for 10 min, then filtered through a funnel
containing glass wool and the infusion was cooled. The
reagents used were iso-butyl methyl ketone (IBMK), diso-
dium hydrogen phosphate (Na2HPO4), ethyl alcohol and
n-butaol. A brief description of the methodology followed
is presented in Fig. 1.
The technique of tea tasting used was in conformity
with the standard procedure. The infusion has made by
adding 2.83 g of tea granules into 142 ml of boiling water
taken in a beaker and 0.5 g of instant tea is mixed in
150 ml of boiling water. The beaker was covered by a lid
and kept for 5 min, after which the infusion was evaluated
for sensory qualities. Market brand CTC tea was taken as
the control for comparison among the quality attributes.
Panelists are supplied with evaluation sheets specially pre-
pared for this purpose and asked to indicate their prefer-
ence about sample quality by assigning a score (9-point
hedonic scale). The score values obtained for various qual-
ity attributes (color, flavor, strength, pungency, mouth feel
and overall acceptability) were averaged and analyzed
statistically.
3. Results and discussion
Experiments were carried out to standardize the process
and to study the effect of various factors during different
stages of processing, so as to find out the optimum operat-
ing parameters. A process and material flow chart was
worked out for the manufacture of IT and TG, which is
shown in Fig. 2
Experiments were carried out with different crushing peri-
ods at medium speed to find out the optimum period for
crushing so as to have maximum juice recovery with maxi-
mum amount of polyphenols and total solids. The results
are presented in Table 1. From the table it is clear that as
the crushing period increases the paste becomes more and
more fine and the juice obtained increases up to a crushing
period of 2.5 min and after that it decreases as crushing per-
iod increases. This is because the finer paste oozes out
through the holes of the strainer. Thus a crushing period of
2.5 min. gave the maximum juice recovery with maximum
amount of total solids and polyphenols in the juice.
After crushing, some reduction in weight of the green
leaves was observed; this may perhaps be due to the loss
of moisture during crushing and handling losses. After
pressing about 320 ml of juice and 566 g of residue were
obtained from 1 kg of green leaves. In pressing operation
the moisture content of the green leaves was reduced by
15–20%. The density and pH of juice were 1023 kg/m3
and 5.24, respectively.

Tea brew

1 ml tea brew + 9 ml distilled water 25 ml tea brew + 25 ml IBMK

(taken in a separating funnel & shaken)
Absorbance at 460 nm (E)

IBMK Layer Aqueous Layer

10 ml aqueous layer + 10 ml butanol

1 ml IBMK layer + 10 ml IBMK layer + (taken in a separating funnel)
9 ml 95% ethyl alcohol 10 ml Na2HPO4 (2.5%)
(taken in a separating funnel)
Absorbance at 380 nm (A) butanol layer aqueous layer

IBMK layer + Aqueous layer

1 ml 45% ethyl alcohol (Discarded)

1 ml butanol layer + 1ml aqueous layer +

9 ml 45% ethyl alcohol 9 ml 45% ethyl alcohol

Absorbance at 380 nm Absorbance at 380 nm Absorbance at 380 nm

(C) (B) (D)
TF % = 4.313 * C
TR % = (B+D-C) * 13.643
HPS % = 13.643 * E
Fig. 1. Method for determination of TF, TR and HPS.
 V.R. Sinija et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 82 (2007) 276–283 279

Tea shoots

1 kg, 78-80 % mc (w.b.)

Crushing

Pressing

Juice Pressed leaf residue

(310-320 ml, 9 - 10 % TS) (560 - 570 g, 64-66 % mc w.b)

Oxygen Fermentation Fermentation

(0.5 m /h) (30-32oC, 80-85% RH, 1 h)
3
(30-32oC, 80-85% RH, 1.5 h)

Heat treatment
(Steam at 1.2 kg/cm2, 1 min)

Centrifugation
Drying
(10000 rpm, 20 min)
(50- 55oC, 12-16 h)

Freeze-drying
(Temperature –39 to +15, 6-8 h)

Instant tea Tea granules

Fig. 2. Process and material flow chart for instant tea manufacture.

Table 1 for IT
Effect of crushing period on the juice recovery (75 g of sample)
OD ¼ 4  105 t2 þ 0:0049t þ 0:1903 ð1Þ
Crushing Juice Pressed leaf TS in Total
period (min) obtained residue (g) juice (%) polyphenols and for TG
(ml) (%)
1.0 18.8 44.85 7.58 5.31
OD ¼ 3  105 t2 þ 0:0053t þ 0:2908; ð2Þ
2.0 20.5 43.51 8.54 5.86 where OD is the optical density and t is the fermentation
2.5 23.0 42.32 10.72 7.02
3.0 21.5 42.16 9.62 6.70
period in minutes.
4.0 20.8 42.38 9.46 6.30 dOD
¼ 8  10 5t þ 0:0049; ð3Þ
dt
Ideal fermentation produces a proper balance between t = 61 min (1 h) for IT. Similarly, for TG,
theaflavins (TF) and thearubigins (TR), substances respon-
dOD
sible for the liquoring characteristics. The optimum period ¼ 6  10 5t þ 0:0053; ð4Þ
was determined for IT and TG by the method based on the dt
amount of TF formed during fermentation. Optimum per- t = 88.33 min (1.5 h).
iod corresponded to the maximum production of TF, The optimum fermentation time for IT was 1 h and for
which was indicated by the peak of the curve obtained by TG was 1.5 h. Fermentation was carried out under ambient
plotting the optical density values of the sample Vs fermen- condition (30–32 °C, 80–85% RH).
tation time. Corresponding curves for IT and TG are The amount of TF formed, as indicated by the increase
shown in Figs. 3 and 4 respectively. Equations for the in OD, in the juice increased with increase in fermentation
curves are: time up to 60 min and after that it decreased. A similar
280 V.R. Sinija et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 82 (2007) 276–283

0.4 Table 2
0.35 OD = -4E-05t2 + 0.0049t + 0.1903 Mean readings obtained for color measurement of various tea samples
2
R = 0.8545
0.3 Quantity of tea Amount of water added L a b %
(g) (ml) Z
OD at 460 nm

0.25
IT
0.2
0.3 150 3.9 0.61 0.82 0.08
0.15 0.4 150 4.1 0.65 0.86 0.09
0.5 150 4.5 0.70 0.91 0.11
0.1

0.05 TG
0
2.5 142 3.5 0.58 0.79 0.09
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 2.83 142 3.9 0.61 0.83 0.11
Fermentation time, min 3.0 142 4.1 0.73 0.99 0.14
Fig. 3. Level of theaflavin formed during fermentation of juice.
CTC tea
2.83 142 4.10 0.66 0.97 0.11

0.6
2
OD = -3E-05t + 0.0053t + 0.2908
2
R = 0.9334 Table 3
0.5
Chemical analysis of IT and TG samples

0.4 Constituents Instant tea Tea granules

OD at 460 nm

Total polyphenols, % 19.63 6.61

0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Fermentation time, min
Fig. 4. Level of theaflavin formed during fermentation of pressed leaf
residue.
trend was found for pressed leaf residue also where the OD
increased up to 90 min. The decrease in TF content beyond
a certain time may be due to the conversion of TF into high
polymeric TRs.
There was about 12–20% loss in weight during fermen-
tation for the pressed leaf residue and about 5–14% loss
in weight for the juice. This may be due to the loss of mois-
ture due to evaporation during fermentation.
The amount of IT and TG required for producing a
brew with the same color and percentage brightness as that
of CTC tea was determined by colorimeter measurements
using trial and error. It was found that the quantity of
instant tea required to produce the same brightness and
L, a, b values as that of the standard CTC tea was 0.5 g
in 150 ml of water and for TG 2.83 g in 142 ml of water
which is same as that for CTC tea. The values are presented
in Table 2.
The tea samples (IT and TG) produced were analyzed
for various chemical constituents by the standard proce-
dures and the samples were also sent to UPASI (United
Planters Association of South India), Tea Research Insti-
tute for analysis. The results are shown in Table 3. The
TF content for a CTC tea varies between 0.4% and 1.2%
and TR varies between 8% and 16%. TR: TF ratio for
instant tea was 10.71 and that for tea granules was 12.12.
Catechins, % 12.21 3.73
TF, % 0.915 0.566
TR, % 9.88 6.86
Caffeine, % 2.02 3.36
High polymerized substances, % 9.15 8.58
Total liquor color 3.3 3.7
120 140 160
This ratio should be within 10–12 for a good quality tea
(Wherkoven, 1974). All the values obtained for various
constituents were within the specified range for a CTC tea.
Caffeine content was found to be 40.4 mg per cup for
instant tea and 96 mg per cup for tea granules. The caffeine
content in standard black tea brew varies between 60 and
115 mg per cup and in a cup of instant tea is 40 mg (Harler,
1993). So even after extracting part of the juice, the black
tea produced has almost comparable caffeine content as
that of the CTC tea. This showed that the efficiency of con-
version of caffeine and other polyphenolic substances pres-
ent in tea leaves during processing increases after extracting
a part of the juice. Instant tea also has high polyphenol and
catechin content and the corresponding values were 19.63%
and 12.21% respectively. Thus it is seen that the instant tea
and the tea granules produced by this method are compa-
rable to that of standard black tea in major chemical
constituents.
The tea samples prepared were evaluated for the various
quality attributes using the standard tea tasting procedure.
Brew was prepared for each sample by the standard
method and evaluated organoleptically for color, flavor,
pungency, strength, mouth feel and overall acceptability
by a taste panel. The mean sensory score for different qual-
ity attributes and overall acceptability for various tea sam-
ples were determined and statistically analyzed for
variance. The mean sensory score for the quality attributes
of various tea samples are given in Table 4. The CD values
showed that the fermentation time had a profound effect on
the various quality attributes.
 V.R. Sinija et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 82 (2007) 276–283 281

Table 4
Mean sensory score for the quality attributes of various tea samples
Sample Mean score*
Color Flavor Pungency Strength Mouthfeel Overall acceptability**
Instant tea
IT-125 6.80 5.69 5.83 6.07 5.85 0.79
IT-175 6.96 6.09 6.31 6.54 6.02 0.86
IT-225 6.95 6.03 6.13 6.29 5.94 0.85
IT-275 6.84 5.97 6.06 6.19 5.93 0.84
IT-325 6.26 5.55 5.99 5.96 5.69 0.77
CD
1% 0.19 0.13 0.08 0.08 0.13 0.01
5% 0.27 0.17 0.11 0.11 0.18 0.01
Tea granules
TLG-125 5.90 6.13 5.57 6.44 5.99 0.79
TLG-175 6.64 6.36 5.96 6.51 6.30 0.86
TLG-225 6.75 6.40 6.04 6.94 6.54 0.89
TLG-275 6.72 6.38 5.94 6.70 6.27 0.89
TLG-325 6.53 6.21 5.89 6.48 6.04 0.81
CD
1% 0.08 0.20 0.11 0.10 0.15 0.02
5% 0.11 0.26 0.14 0.14 0.20 0.03
CTC tea
CTC-125 6.55 6.55 5.74 6.67 5.93 0.86
CTC-175 6.65 6.37 5.80 6.94 5.80 0.82
CTC-225 6.63 6.64 5.54 6.60 6.01 0.78
CTC-275 6.72 6.89 5.79 6.79 6.21 0.85
CTC-325 6.25 6.49 5.94 7.02 5.82 0.85
*
9–10, Excellent; 7–8.9, very good; 5–6.9, good; 3–4.9, fair; 1–2.9, poor.
**
+2, liked very much; +1, liked; 0, neither liked nor disliked; 1, disliked; 2, disliked very much.

All the quality attributes for instant tea and tea granules
were rated from good to very good. Figs. 5 and 6 showed
the results of the sensory evaluation depicted in the form
of bar diagrams. From the figure it is seen that the color
and pungency was highest for the instant tea sample,
whereas the flavor was relatively less than the CTC tea
and TG. The TG exhibited almost same or slightly higher
score for all the quality attributes as compared to the
CTC tea. The overall acceptability for both the IT and
TG were comparable to that of CTC tea. The removal of
a part of juice from the green leaves does not have a
marked effect on the quality of black tea. Thus, we can
get both IT and TG from the green shoots simultaneously
in this method.
In another experiment, instant tea and tea granules were
prepared with different fermentation times, and the pre-
pared samples were analyzed for the quality by the sensory
evaluation panel. The results are shown in Fig. 7. The over-
all acceptability is found to be maximum for the samples
with 1-h fermentation in the case of instant tea and the
samples with 1.5-h fermentation time was having maxi-
mum acceptability in the case of tea granules. This con-
firmed the result obtained for optimum fermentation time
by the method based on the amount of theaflavin formed
during fermentation.
In most of the existing methods for the production of
instant tea, where hot water extraction is used for extract-
ing the constituents from fresh leaves, the residue obtained

1
8 instant tea
instant tea 0.9
7 tea granules tea granules
0.8
6 CTC tea CTC tea
0.7
Mean score
Mean score

5 0.6
4 0.5
0.4
3
0.3
2
0.2
1 0.1
0 0
color flavor pungency strength mouthfeel overall acceptability
Error bars indicate the mean value +/- standard deviation Error bars indicate the mean value +/- standard deviation

Fig. 5. Comparison among the various quality attributes of different tea Fig. 6. Comparison among the overall acceptability of different tea
samples. samples.
282 V.R. Sinija et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 82 (2007) 276–283
1 study is of less operating cost and at the same time main-
0.9
0.8
0.7
Mean score
0.6
0.5
0.4 Instant Tea
0.3
Tea Granules
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Fermentation time, h
Error bars indicate the mean value +/- standard deviation
Fig. 7. Effect of fermentation time on the overall acceptability of instant
tea and tea granules.
after the extraction is discarded as waste. Whereas in the
present method the juice is directly pressed out using a sim-
ple pressing mechanism and the residue obtained after juice
expression is converted into black tea granules resembling
CTC tea in quality characteristics. It is actually a value
added process; from the same leaf we are getting both
instant tea and black tea. Instant black tea produced in
the present method by fermenting the expressed juice fol-
lowed by freeze drying is completely soluble even in cold
water.
Moreover, in hot water extraction, the high temperature
during processing might cause the degradation of chemical
constituents. Among the two groups of volatile flavoring
compounds present in black tea the group I compounds
are products of lipid breakdown, mainly of the unsaturated
fatty acids (hexanol, hexenal, nonanal, nonanol, heptanal,
heptanol, etc.) mediated by the action of lipoxygenase.
Group II compounds in general was dominated by linalool,
phenylacetaldehyde, geraniol and methyl salicylate are
mainly derived from glycosides of terpenoid related com-
pounds which impart a sweet flowery aroma to black tea
(Robinson & Owuor, 1992). At higher temperature (70–
100 °C) these compound may get lost and also in case of
extraction from fresh green shoots, it will inactivate the
enzymes which are responsible for the production of char-
acteristic changes to the substrates during various process-
ing stages (Ravichandran & Parthiban, 1998). Due to the
above mentioned reasons, addition of other processing
units to strip off the aromatic volatile components during
extraction process is necessary in order to maintain the
quality of instant tea in hot water extraction method.
Because of the addition of extra processing units (for
aroma stripping, separation from stripped gas and concen-
tration) the production cost per unit product is also high.
Therefore, it is better to have some processing method
where there is no heat treatment and also low energy con-
sumption. The mechanical expression unit which is used for
expressing the juice from fresh tea leaves in the present
taining the quality of tea, since there is no heat treatment
during juice expression.
Tea contains about 300–450 g/kg of extractable solids,
but the yield of instant tea is only 200 g/kg prepared tea
(black tea) in commercial production scale, leaving the
major portion (800 g.) as waste (spent tea leaf) (Chen,
1979), whereas in the present method 20 ± 2 g instant tea
powder and 225 ± 5 g. black tea granules were produced
from 1 kg of fresh green tea shoots. Even in methods using
direct extraction from fresh shoots for production of
3 instant tea, the maximum amount of solids extracted with
hot water is around 30% of dry matter present in fresh
shoots (Schott, 1988).
4. Conclusion
In conclusion, a novel technique for the production of
instant tea has been established in this investigation and
it is patented (India No. 195073). The IT produced by
this method is of good color, pungency and other
liquoring characteristics. Polyphenols, TF and TR con-
tents are also in the acceptable range. The IT produced
is soluble even in cold water. The pressed leaf residue
is converted into black tea, which is comparable to
CTC tea in quality and liquoring characteristics. Thus,
there is considerable savings in the economy since both
the juice as well as the residue is converted into value
added products.
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