Evaluation for the Qualitative Status of Eight Marketed Teas of Finlay Brand Produced In Bangladesh

Abstract

Eight different marketed teas of Finlay brand available in the local markets of Bangladesh viz; Premium tea, Gold tea, BOP tea, Finlay's tea, Dust (WP) tea, English breakfast tea bag, Gold double chamber tea bag and Finlay tea bag were experimented before expiry dates to evaluate their qualitative status viz; Caffeine, Total Polyphenol (TP), Total Catechin (TC), Theaflavin (TF), Thearubigin (TR), Theabrownin (TB), Highly polymerized substances (HPS), Total liquor color (TLC), Antioxidant activity (AA), Briskness index (BI), Color index (CI) and nutrient contents (N, P, K, Ca, Na and Fe). All the studied qualitative parameters were found to be varied significantly among the teas of Finlay brand. The values of caffeine and antioxidant activity (AA) were found to be changed from 6.42% (English breakfast tea bag) to 3.5% (BOP tea) and 88.52% (Gold tea) to 86.28% (Finlay tea bag) respectively. Likewise, the estimated maximum values of TF, TB, TC, TLC, and TP content were detected to be 1.15%, 13.75%, 5.93%, 4.21 and 38.3% respectively in English breakfast tea bag but maximum value of HPS was estimated to be 5.28% in Gold tea. On the contrary, minimum TF, TC, TLC, HPS and TP were found to be 0.71%, 4.24%, 3.4, 3.96% and 26.81% in Dust (WP) tea respectively whereas minimum value of TB was found to be 5.72% in Gold tea. In case of TR, the value ranged from 18.42% (BOP tea) to 9.32% (Finlay tea). On the other hand, the highest CI was determined to be 6.36 in Finlay's tea whilst maximum BI was detected to be 24.13 in BOP and both the CI and BI was found to be minimum (4.55 and 11.91) in Dust (WP) tea. Moreover, the highest average value of N, P, K, Na and Fe contents Evaluation … K. M. Mesbaul Alam et al.