The Change in Physico-chemical, Biochemical and Microbiological Parameters of White, Green, Black and Oolong Tea during Storage in Different Packaging with Different Desiccants

Gargi Saha; Sudeshna Shyam Choudhury

Abstract

Tea is commercially important cash crop. The shelf life of tea is a major concern of tea industries. Different types of tea like White, Oolong, Green and Black tea have some individually distinct quality parameters like physico-chemical, biochemical and microbial content, which are changed (deteriorated) during storage-and the trend of changes are also distinct for each type. Use of different packaging materials along with different desiccant like silica, calcium chloride may increase shelf lives of all the tea types, by protecting the quality parameters up to certain time periods. In our 18 months storage study to detect shelf lives for best before use, it was found that the aluminium pack is best among all the packaging material, moreover the aluminium pack with silica desiccant combination is the best one to keep qualities like moisture content, microbial content, polyphenol content (biochemical parameter) in different tea types for 18 months. The recommendation is the aluminium silica combination is best for increasing shelf lives in different types of tea (trend of increasing shelf life) in months than control pack is green tea (4)> white tea (3)> oolong tea (2.8)> black tea (2), and the best before use months are 9 months for white tea, 11 months for Oolong tea, 12 months for green tea and 14 months for black tea with aluminium and silica package combination.

Abstract

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