Abstract
We report herein some phytopharmaceutical properties of commonly marketed teas in Nigeria. The organoleptic and physicochemical properties such as color, odor, physical appearance as well as ash value, moisture content, flow properties, pH and solubility were interrogated using standard methods as the measure of their phytopharmaceutical properties. The results show that, all the teas were coarse in nature and the colors ranged from green to brown. Most of the teas are pleasant to minty odor, while the tastes ranged from minty, sweet, bitter to tasteless. The ash values obtained were between 0.7 and 1.00. The pH values ranged between 4.23 and 7.89 with cold infusions having higher pH values than the hot infusions. All the teas investigated had angles of repose between 17.13 and 35.81°, Carr’s index between 4.65 to16% and Hausner quotient between 1.08 and 1.19; they also had moisture content ≤ 10% suggesting adequate processing and storage requirements. The teas investigated had variable physicochemical properties which underscores the need for standardization of teas before approval by regulatory authorities. Key words: Teas, phytopharmaceutical properties, standardization.
Highlights
Teas originated from plant Camellia sinesis; they are indigenous to Chinese and Indians
On the other hand look like teas and is brewed same way but are not considered tea because they do not originate from the Camellia sinensis plant
A picture of the evaluated tea samples is shown in Figure 1, while the results of organoleptic evaluation of the teas are presented in Table 1. contrary to videos circulating the social media on worm-infested teas in circulation, physical and microscopic examination of the teas did not reveal the presence of worms, animal feces, metals or any other extraneous dangerous material
Summary
Teas originated from plant Camellia sinesis; they are indigenous to Chinese and Indians. Standardization of teas is very essential since it is being consumed as a type of medicinal preparation; evaluation of factors that determine the quality of teas such as the plucking method, fermentation time, sorting, particle size and organoleptic assessments among others (Gill et al, 2011) become necessary to improve acceptability of the tea products and safe guard the health of the consumers. In a different study, Naithani and Kakkar (2004) assessed the physical and chemical properties of some Indian herbal teas and reported the presence of organochlorine pesticides as contaminants; this corroborates the need for quality assessment of teas so as to secure the health of consumers. This study was conducted to evaluate the organoleptic and physical-chemical properties of teas (teas and herbal teas) circulating in the Nigerian market
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