Quality characteristics of green Tea's infusion as influenced by brands and types of brewing water

Hui-Ling Tan; Moses Ojukwu; Le-Xuan Lee; Azhar Mat Easa

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e12638

Quality characteristics of green Tea's infusion as influenced by brands and types of brewing water

Heliyon. 2022 Dec 26;9(2):e12638. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e12638. eCollection 2023 Feb.

Authors

Hui-Ling Tan¹, Moses Ojukwu², Le-Xuan Lee², Azhar Mat Easa²

Affiliations

¹ School of Hospitality and Service Management, Sunway Universiti, 47500, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.
² Food Technology Division, School of Industrial Technology, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia.

Abstract

The influences of four types of brewing waters including tap water (TAP), alkaline ionized water (ALK), magnetized water (MAG) and mineral water (MIN), and two brands of commercial green tea (L and T) on quality characteristics of tea infusions were studied. The Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP) values of the brewing waters was TAP > MAG, MIN > ALK. After brewing, all infusions showed a significant drop (p < 0.05) in pH values. The pH of original brewing waters of ALK (8.64) was the highest as compared to other waters, whereas L-MIN (pH 6.63) and T-MIN (pH 5.82) showed the highest pH values after brewing. Overall, the quality characteristics of green tea infusions were influenced by the brands of tea and the types of brewing water used. MAG was the most superior brewing water in extracting the green tea. Evidenced by total phenolic and flavonoids contents, both L-MAG and T-MAG infusions were superior in extracting antioxidative compounds as compared to other tea infusions. In addition, T-MAG infusion was the least astringent (P < 0.05) and scored the highest (P < 0.05) overall acceptability ( $5.40)$ by sensory panelists.

Keywords: Antioxidant capacity; Brewing water; Green tea; Physicochemical properties.