NL8101677A - PROCESS FOR PREPARING AN AROMAPREAM PREPARATION SUITABLE FOR AROMATIZING TEA. - Google Patents

Description

% * V.Ο.1831

Process for preparing an aroma preparation suitable for flavoring tea.

Tea drink »flavored with a tea-foreign aroma, for example of citrus fruits, is appreciated by large groups of consumers for its special organoleptic properties.

Various products are commercially available from which a tea drink with the desired tea-foreign aroma can be prepared in a simple manner. Some of these products are mixtures of dried tea extract, tea-foreign flavor, for example citric acid, and optionally sugar, which yield "iced tea" by dissolving in water and adding ice cubes. Other known products consist of aromatized leaf tea, from which a brew can be prepared in the manner usual for leaf tea. Various methods are known for the preparation of such flavored leaf tea. In some of these, an oily aroma is applied directly to the leaf tea, for example, by sprinkling the tea with the desired amount of aroma and then mixing it together, or by stirring the tea in a tumbler, while the aroma is in the the desired amount is sprayed into the tea mass. Although in this way a product with widely appreciated organoleptic properties can be obtained, these methods have the drawback that the tea so flavored has to be packaged airtight due to the volatility of some components of the oily aroma and after opening the packaging quickly loses its special aroma. Such an oily aroma spoils on contact with atmospheric oxygen and thereby loses its valued organoleptic properties. These 25 unstable products are therefore less suitable for packaging in tea bags.

To overcome this drawback, it has been proposed to flavor leaf tea by mixing the tea with an aroma preparation, in which the aroma is contained in a water-soluble non-volatile carrier, so that the arcana cannot volatilize or spoil, even if the preparation exposed to the open air for a long time. Such a stable flavor preparation can be prepared according to Dutch patent application 74.11619 by spray-drying an emulsion of an oily flavor in an aqueous solution of gum arabic. The particles of the powder thus obtained consist of microcapsules in which the aroma is contained within a skin of gum arabic. This flavor preparation can be agglomerated with dust tea to a grain size suitable for mixing with leaf tea. A similar method is also proposed in Dutch patent application 76.11520. Although the flavored tea thus obtained can be packaged and stored without special precautions, for example in tea bags, without fear of spoiling or loss of volatilization, these known flavorings have the disadvantage that they contain a fairly large amount tea-foreign carrier, for example more than 20% gum arabic, which cannot benefit the orgaroleptic properties of the product. In addition, in several countries there are legal objections to the presence of tea-foreigners in flavored tea.

It has now been found that it is possible to replace the tea-foreign carrier in an aroma preparation of the type described above with a tea-own carrier, namely by soluble tea ingredients. In particular, it has been found that by spray-drying an emulsion of an oily aroma in an aqueous tea extract, a powdery product is obtained in which the oily portion of the aroma is encapsulated in the particles in a skin of dry, water-soluble ingredients. and furthermore that the flavor preparation thus obtained is very stable and is excellent for agglomeration using water as an agglomeration liquid.

The process according to the invention therefore relates to a process for the preparation of an aroma preparation suitable for flavoring tea, wherein an oily tea-flavored flavor is mixed with an aqueous solution of a carrier to form an oil-in-water emulsion and the emulsion obtained is spray dried, which method is characterized in that an aqueous tea extract or an aqueous solution of dried tea extract is used as the carrier solution.

For the preparation of the flavor preparation, a flavor is used which is suitable for flavoring the tea. Examples include lemon, orange, rum, peppermint, bergamot, jasmine and rose flavors. The aroma consists wholly or partly of oily components, which are not miscible with aqueous tea extract. The content of oily 8101677-3 components should be sufficient to form an emulsion thereof in an aqueous tea extract. In addition to the oil phase, the aroma can also contain a water phase. This water phase may or may not be homogeneously mixed with the oil phase and may contain solids, for example citric acid, in solution.

The selected oily aroma is intimately mixed with an aqueous tea extract to form an oil-in-water emulsion. Instead of an extract, an aqueous solution of a dried tea extract can of course also be used. The extract can be prepared in known manner with hot water from fermented or non-fermented (green) tea. The solids content of the emulsion should be sufficient to stabilize the arcana, that is, practically all aroma-containing oil droplets can be encapsulated within a skin of solid, water-soluble ingredients. These solid water-soluble constituents are the solid tea constituents from the extract and, if the flavor used contained an aqueous phase with solid dissolved therein, the solid constituents from the flavor. So far, the most favorable results have been obtained with emulsions with solids in the aqueous phase of at least 20% by weight. The fact that it must be possible to spray-dry the mixture of aroma and extract places an upper limit on the solid content of the extract, which depends on the spray-drying installation used. Usually this upper limit is of the order of 50% by weight.

Preferably, the mixture of aroma and extract is formulated such that the spray dried mixture contains 5-35% constituents of the selected tea-foreign aroma as an oil phase, depending on the strength of the aroma. In this regard, for example, lemon, oranges, rum aromas are considered weak flavors and bergamot, jasmine and rose flavors as strong, while peppermint flavor is of medium strength. In order to show off weak arcanas, they are preferably mixed with a green tea extract, because their own tea flavor is less pronounced than that of a fermented tea extract.

Strong aromas can also be combined with an extract of fermented tea.

Spray drying of the mixture of aroma and extract can be done in a known manner.

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The aroma preparation obtained by spray drying can be used in various ways. For example, it can be used as such or mixed with dried tea extract (instant tea powder and / or sugar for the preparation of so-called "iced tea". To improve wettability, homogeneity and dissolution rate, the preparation or mixture can also be Agglomerated If a green tea extract has been used for the preparation of the flavor preparation, the tea's own tea taste is sometimes insufficient and mixing with dried tea extract is desirable, which is usually not necessary as an extract of fermented tea. has been used.

If the flavoring preparation is intended for flavoring leaf tea, fermented or not, it is preferably agglomerated with dust tea. The dust tea can consist of one or more tea fractions which are collected during the sieving of dried fermented tea, for instance from so-called "siftings" with a particle size of 0.1-0.5 mm or from a mixture thereof with so-called "dust tea". "with a particle size of 0.2-0.7 mm.

Agglomeration can take place in a known manner, for example in an agglomeration dish, as described in the aforementioned Dutch patent application 74.11619. Water is a suitable agglomeration liquid.

Preferably, the flavor composition is agglomerated with about the same amount by weight of fabric tea. By suitable control of the conditions during the agglomeration, the grain size of the agglomerated product can be adjusted to the dimensions of the leaf tea with which the granular flavor preparation is to be mixed.

The agglomerated product is dried if necessary and then mixed with leaf tea. The amount of flavor preparation in the mixture depends on the flavor strength of the aroma and is generally 5-24 wt.%.

EXAMPLE I

3.8 kg of a commercially available liquid lemon flavor with a water content of about 60% by weight and consisting of a mixture of despined lemon oil and up to about 15% of the original volume of concentrated lemon juice was emulsified in a solution of 14.2 kg of dried green tea extract in 30 kg of water, after which the emulsion obtained was spray dried. 15.7 kg of flavor preparation were obtained, which was agglomerated with water with an equal amount of tea siftings to form granules of 0.5-2 mm in size. An agglomeration tray was used for the agglomeration, as described in Dutch patent application 74.11619.

8 kg of the agglomerated product was mixed with 92 kg of fermented leaf tea with dimensions of 0.5-4 mm, after which the mixture was packaged in tea bags of wet-strong paper. The tea thus flavored also produced a tea drink with the desired lemon flavor without special precautions, even after long storage.

EXAMPLE XI

Of the liquid lemon aroma described in Example 1, 6 kg was emulsified in 40 kg of aqueous fermented tea extract with a dry matter content of 14% by weight, after which the resulting emulsion was spray-dried, whereby 8 kg of flavor preparation was obtained. By intimately mixing 10 g of this flavor preparation with 90 g of powdered sugar, an instant powder was prepared which, when dissolved in ice water, yields a concentration of 10 g / l so-called iced tea.

EXAMPLE III

10 kg of a commercially available peppermint oil was emulsified in 40 kg aqueous extract of fermented tea with a dry matter content of 14% by weight, after which the resulting emulsion was spray dried. This yielded 8 kg of a flavoring composition, which was agglomerated with water with an equal amount of tea siftings to form granules with a size of 0.2-2.5 mm. A mixture of these granules with leaf tea as in Example I was completely stable and suitable for packaging in tea bags. The tea thus flavored provided a tea drink with the desired peppermint flavor.

8101677

Claims (6)

A process for preparing an aroma preparation suitable for flavoring tea, wherein an oily tea-foreign aroma is mixed with an aqueous solution of a carrier to form an oil-in-water emulsion and the resulting emulsion is spray-dried characterized in that the carrier solution is an aqueous tea extract or an aqueous solution of a dried tea extract. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the solid content of the extract or solution is chosen such that the emulsion contains at least 20% by weight of dry components dissolved in the water phase. Process according to claims 1-2, characterized in that the aroma and the extract or solution are mixed together in such a proportion that the spray-dried product contains 5-35% by weight of tea-foreign aroma components as an oil phase. Process according to claims 1-3, for preparing an aroma preparation suitable for the aromatization of leaf tea, characterized in that the spray-dried product is agglomerated with dust tea. Mixture of dried leaf tea and an aroma preparation obtained according to claim 4. Tea bag made of wet-strong paper, filled with a mixture according to claim 5. 8101677