Introduction Of Instant Tea Processing

–Tea beverage is a kind of soft drink containing a certain amount of natural tea polyphenols, caffeine and other active ingredients of tea, which is processed from tea leaves or tea powder and tea extract as the main raw materials. This kind of beverage not only has the unique flavor of tea, but also with nutrition, health care and medical effects, it has become a multi-functional beverage popular among consumers. Tea beverages have evolved from the earliest traditional brewing to a family of tea beverages with various varieties such as instant tea, fruit juice tea, and health tea.

–Instant tea is a solid beverage, it is required to be able to dissolve quickly after adding an appropriate amount of water, it has the color and flavor of a tea beverage, and the raw materials of instant tea can be completely dissolved in water. The common pure instant teas include instant black tea, instant green tea, instant oolong tea, etc., as well as some blended instant teas such as instant honey tea, instant milk tea, etc.

–The instant tea processing plant includes tea leaves grinding machine, tea leaves extracting tanks, tea juice blending tanks, tea juice purification and filtering, tea juice concentration, tea juice concentrate drying, and instant tea filling machine.

–The end products of the instant tea can be filled into bottles, cans, or aluminum foil plastic bags.

Whether it is pure instant tea or blended instant tea, the processing process is basically similar: raw material pretreatment- tea leaves extraction- tea juice purification-tea juice concentration- tea juice drying- instant tea packaging-finished product.

1. Tea pretreatment: Dry the raw tea leaves for making instant tea to make the water content not more than 6%, and then enter the crusher for coarse crushing. After crushing, the surface area of ​​the tea is increased. During extraction, it will greatly increase the water content. The contact area speeds up the dissolution process of solubles, and the fineness of tea crushing is about 0.4mm.
2. Tea extraction: The flavor substances in tea are distributed in different parts of the mesophyll tissue. The solvent commonly used in extraction is water. During extraction, the ratio of tea to water is 1:9-15, the water temperature is close to 100°C, and the extraction time is 10-15min.
3. Tea juice purification and filtration: The purpose of purification is to remove impurities and sediments in the tea extract. The purification method is mainly to remove impurities in the tea juice through filters and centrifugal separators.
4. Tea juice concentration: The purified tea juice extract is relatively thin and needs to be concentrated to increase the concentration to 20%-40%. Through concentration, the drying efficiency can be improved, and it is also conducive to obtaining low-density granular products. Concentration methods include falling film evaporator concentration and membrane separation concentration. The use of evaporator concentration has the characteristics of high concentration efficiency, but it also has the feature of losing flavor and nutrients in the tea juice.
5. Tea juice drying: Drying is to remove the moisture in the concentrated tea juice, so that the moisture content of the product does not exceed 5%. At present, the commonly used drying methods include spray drying, freeze-drying, and vacuum drum drying. Among them, spray drying is the most commonly used with high efficiency, small size and low cost. Freeze drying can effectively maintain the color and fragrance of the product, but the equipment cost is much higher than spray drying.
6. Packaging: Since instant tea is very easy to absorb moisture and odor, it should be packaged as soon as possible after the product is dried. When packaging, the ambient temperature is lower than 20℃ and the relative humidity is lower than 60%. The packaging material has good sealing performance.

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