Taste-improving agents and tea drinks containing thereof
View Patent ↗The present invention provides an agent for improving taste of tea drinks, comprising at least one glyceroglycolipid, preferably monogalactosyl diacylglycerol or digalactosyl diacylglycerol, as an active ingredient. The agent of the present invention is for use to enhance kokumi, to mask astringent taste, and to prevent precipitates. The agent of the present invention is effective especially in improving tea drinks containing ground tea leaves. The present invention also provides a method for producing tea drinks containing ground tea leaves and at least 1.0 μg/ml of glyceroglycolipids and having an absorbency of 0.25 or below at 680 nm, and tea drinks containing glyceroglycolipid, which method comprises grinding tea leaves into an average particle size of 1-100 μm (preferably 1-50 μm, more preferably 1-20 μm), and mixing the resulting ground tea leaves with neutral (pH 5-7, preferably 5.5-7, especially preferably 6-7) water to elute the glyceroglycolipids into the water.
1. A method for producing a tea drink containing glyceroglycolipids, comprising:
grinding tea leaves to break cell walls of the tea leaves, wherein the ground tea leaves have an average particle size 1-100 μm;
mixing the resulting ground tea leaves with water having a temperature effective for extraction of glyceroglycolipids to elute glyceroglycolipids into the water and wet grinding by use of a high pressure homogenizer at a pH condition of 5-7 to obtain a tea extract comprising glyceroglycolipids; and
blending the tea extract with green tea extract solution to obtain a tea drink containing at least 1.0 μg/ml of glyceroglycolipids and 0.10-5.0 mg/ml catechins, wherein the tea drink comprises 0.002-0.025 parts by weight of the glyceroglycolipids per 1 part by weight of catechins.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the proportion of the glyceroglycolipids to an insoluble solid content, calculated as
amount
of
glyceroglycolipids
(
μ
g
/
ml
)
absorbency
at
680
nm
,
is 7 or above.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the proportion of the glyceroglycolipids to an insoluble solid content, calculated as
amount
of
glyceroglycolipids
(
μ
g
/
ml
)
absorbency
at
680
nm
,
is 10 or above.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the proportion of the glyeeroglycolipids to an insoluble solid content, calculated as
amount
of
glyceroglycolipids
(
μ
g
/
ml
)
absorbency
at
680
nm
,
is 12 or above.
5. The method of claim 1 further comprising removing insoluble solids to adjust the absorbency at 680 nm of the tea drink to 0.25 or lower.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the average particle size of the ground tea leaves is 1-50 μm.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the average particle size of the ground tea leaves is 1-20μm.
8. The method of claim 1 wherein the wet grinding step is conducted at a pH of 5.5-7.
9. The method of claim 1 wherein the wet grinding step is conducted at a pH of 6-7.