Antioxidant Activity Potential of Red Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) Peel as Herbal Tea

Abstract

Red pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) contains punicalagin (elagitanin) which has strong antioxidant activity. This study aims to examine the antioxidant activity of steeping tea from red pomegranate peel. This research is observational with red pomegranate peel as the research object. The red pomegranate peel is processed into simplicia, then some of the simplicia is brewed in boiling water at 100 °C and the other part is made of ethanol extract. Steeping tea and ethanol extract at a dose of 1.25; 2.5; 5; 10; and 20 ppm were measured for its antioxidant activity by the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate (DPPH) method. As a control, ascorbic acid was used. The antioxidant activity is expressed in IC50. Data were analyzed by one-way Analysis of Variance. The results showed that the IC50 of steeping tea was 17.59 ppm, ethanol extract was 9.58 ppm, and ascorbic acid was 2.98 ppm. There was no significant difference in the IC50 between brewed tea, ethanol extract and ascorbic acid (p = 0.05). It was concluded that P. granatum L peel in the form of tea infusion had lower antioxidant activity than the ethanol and ascorbic acid extracts, but statistically all three showed the same strong antioxidant activity.