International Journal of Food Science and Nutrition

Authors
Ashani Bulathgama, Dewni Gunasekara, Indira Wickramasinghe

Abstract
Tea concentrate is a one of major ingredient in trending food product bubble tea, which has a high demand in around the globe, and even in Sri Lankan high end market, yet do not produce its raw ingredients in Sri Lanka. The refused black tea is a waste product made in the black tea production, which has the ability to impart almost same sensory qualities as accepted products, in value addition, but only used in composting and as an animal feed in the industry. Therefore this study was conducted in the objective of developing tea concentrate to be incorporated in bubble tea using the refused black tea. The tea concentrate was therefore made with high grade, low grade and refused black tea, and the sensory qualities were analyzed in order to decide the suitability of using refused black tea over quality tea grades. According to the results refused tea was accepted in regard to sensory qualities and was shown a phytochemical composition of 44.77±0.52 and 246.9 mg/L of tea concentrate respectively for polyphenol content and antioxidant capacity. According to the L*a*b* color values and benchmarking of the final bubble tea product against the commercial product, the refused black tea concentrate was accepted to be used in bubble tea production. The laboratory checked shelf life for the developed tea concentrate was 10 days.