EVALUATION OF CHANGES IN CHEMICHAL COMPOUND IN TEA WINE

Tea Wine is an alcoholic beverage prepared by fermenting sugar enriched tea infusion with yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). The Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka developed this process with the intension of introducing diversified product of tea. Information on the changes of important tea constituents during tea wine fermentation will be useful for commercialization of this product. However, there is hardly any recently reported information on the changes in chemical constituent during tea wine fermentation. Polyphenols, catechins and amino acid mainly contribute to the characteristic organoleptic and therapeutic properties of tea. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to investigate changes in polyphenol, catechins and amino acid contents during tea wine fermentation. Filtered black tea infusion with 2% soluble solids (2 °Brix) was obtained and its Brix value was adjusted to 22 by adding sugar. Then this sugar enriched tea infusion was fermented with yeast in glass canisters fitted with fermentation trap in triplicate for six weeks. Changes in catechins, polyphenol and amino acid were investigated in weekly interval during the fermentation period.