Process for fabricating leaf tea products
AssigneeConopco, Inc.
InventorsMichael Alan Cooper, Ian Smith
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Shown is a process for manufacturing a fabricated leaf tea product. The process includes the steps of: (i) providing a concentrated liquid tea composition; (ii) providing a base leaf tea; (iii) combining the concentrated liquid tea composition with the base leaf tea to form a tea mixture having a total soluble solids content of at least 50% by dry weight of the mixture; and (iv) drying the tea mixture. At least 20% by weight of the base leaf tea has a particle size of +16 mesh and/or the tea mixture is sorted according to particle size to yield a fraction wherein at least 20% by weight of the fraction has a particle size of +16 mesh; and the time between forming the tea mixture (step iii) and drying (step iv) is at least 5 minutes.
Claims5
A process for manufacturing a fabricated leaf tea product, comprising the following steps:
- (i) providing a concentrated liquid tea composition, which comprises from about 10wt % to about 40wt % tea solids;
- (ii) providing a base leaf tea;
- (iii) combining the concentrated liquid tea composition with the base leaf tea to form a tea mixture having a total soluble solids content of at least 50% by dry weight of the mixture;
- and
- (iv) drying the tea mixture;
- wherein:
- about 40% by weight to about 100% by weight of the base leaf tea has a particle size of +16 mesh and/or the tea mixture is sorted according to particle size to yield a fraction wherein at least 40% by weight of the fraction has a particle size of +16 mesh;
- and
- the time between forming the tea mixture (step iii) and drying (step iv) is about 5 minutes to 2 hours;
- thereby forming said fabricated leaf tea product having a bulk density of about 0.35 g/ml.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.