Antioxidant Capacity and Consumer Acceptability of Spiced Black Tea

Value addition of bulk curl tear cut (CTC) black tea is important to meet emerging customer needs and address challenges in a competitive beverage market. Spicing of the tea is one way of value addition but little or no research has been done on the biochemical effect of blending tea with spices and consumer acceptability. A study was conducted to determine the effect of spices on consumer acceptability; pricing and anti-oxidant capacities of black CTC tea consumed in the Kenyan market. Six spices and a spice mix including; ginger, lemon grass, nutmeg, cinnamon, rosemary and tea masala were used to develop aerated spice tea. The spice mix-tea masala comprised of ginger, cinnamon, cardamoms, cloves, black pepper and nutmeg. The threshold levels of spice-tea blends for commercial purposes were demonstrated using three highly rated spices i.e. cinnamon, lemon grass and ginger. Economic costing was done using the cinnamon spiced-tea. The results showed that black tea had the highest antioxidant activity of 92.66% against that of the highest spice cinnamon 89.89%. Antioxidant activity of spiced tea significantly (P<=0.05) decreased with the quantity of added spice. Spices significantly (P<=0.05) increased consumer preference of the black tea and the preferred spice-mix ratios also differed. Some spices were preferred more than others as shown by the three best rated spice-tea mixes including; cinnamon at 10% lemon grass at 5% and ginger at 15% which had mean scores of 6.74, 6.35 and 6.58 respectively on a hedonic scale.