Process for manufacturing tea products
Shown is a process having the steps of: providing fresh tea material rich in stem; and expressing juice from the fresh tea material thereby to produce stem residue and tea juice having a mixture of tea compounds.
1. A process comprising the steps of:
a) providing fresh tea material rich in stem; comprising at least about 50% by weight of stem;
said fresh tea material never having been dried to a water content of less than 30% by weight and having a moisture content of about 30 to about 90% by weight of the fresh tea material;
and followed by
b) expressing juice from the fresh tea material thereby to produce stem residue and tea juice comprising a mixture of tea compounds; wherein during said expression step, the moisture content of the tea material is about 30 to about 90% by weight;
wherein the tea juice comprises at least 4.0 mg theanine per ml of juice.
2. A process according to claim 1 comprising the additional step of drying the tea juice to a concentrate.
3. A process according to claim 1 wherein the tea juice is combined with leaf tea.
4. A process according to claim 1 comprising the additional steps of:
c) fractionating the mixture of tea compounds; wherein said fractionation step comprises a unit process selected from membrane filtration, preparative chromatography, solvent extraction, precipitation, distillation and combinations thereof; and
d) recovering at least one fraction enriched in at least one tea compound.
5. A process according to claim 4 wherein the at least one tea compound is amino acid.
6. A process according to claim 5 wherein the at least one tea compound is theanine.
7. A process comprising the steps of:
a) providing fresh tea material rich in stem; comprising at least about 50% by weight of stem;
said fresh tea material having a moisture content of about 30 to about 90% by weight of the fresh tea material;
followed by
b) expressing juice from the fresh tea material thereby to produce stem residue and tea juice comprising a mixture of tea compounds; wherein during said expression step, the moisture content of the tea material is about 30 to about 90% by weight;
wherein the tea juice comprises at least 4.0 mg theanine per ml of juice; and
e) processing the stem residue to produce made tea and/or extracting the stem residue with a solvent to produce a tea extract.
8. The process according to claim 7 comprising the additional steps of:
c) fractionating the mixture of tea compounds; wherein said fractionating step comprises a unit process selected from membrane filtration, preparative chromatography, solvent extraction, precipitation, distillation and combinations thereof; and
d) recovering at least one fraction enriched in at least one tea compound.