FORM - 2
THE PATENTS ACT, 1970
(39 of 1970)
&
The Patents Rules, 2006
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION
(See Section 10 and Rule 13)
A HOT WATER SOLUBLE TEA COMPOSITION
HINDUSTAN UNILEVER LIMITED, a company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act, 1913 and having its registered office at Hindustan Lever House, 165/166, Backbay Reclamation, Mumbai -400 020, Maharashtra, India
The following specification describes the invention

Technical Field
The invention relates to a solid hot water soluble tea composition. The invention more particularly relates to a solid hot water soluble tea composition that has a flavour and aroma impact similar to freshly brewed tea.
Background and Prior Art
Tea is one of the most popular beverage drunk widely in many parts of the world. In fact tea is the second largest consumed beverage after water. Tea is consumed in many different formats. Popular formats include black tea, green tea, oolong tea, hot-instant tea, cold-instant tea, ice-tea. Generally, to prepare black leaf tea, fresh green leaves of the plant Camellia sinensis are withered (a process where plucked tea leaves are allowed to lose moisture and bring about chemical / biochemical changes especially in aroma), macerated, fermented (in which process enzymes in the tea leaf use atmospheric oxygen to oxidise various substrates to produce coloured products) and then dried at higher temperatures (to stop the enzyme activity). Green tea is produced by not exposing the tea leaves to the fermentation process. Partial fermentation is used to produce intermediate-type tea known as "oolong" tea.
Green, black and oolong tea are products which are brewed in hot water to produce tea infusions wherefrom the tea leaf insolubles are filtered before the infusion is consumed. Many consumers add different additives e.g sugar, milk, or lemon to the infusions depending on their individual preferences.
Two of the most important characteristics of tea that consumers seek and expect in their tea are the aroma and the flavour. Aroma is what is sensed by the nose and generally depends on the volatile components of tea. Tea-tasters evaluate aroma in terms of three descriptors viz. tea aroma, tea, green aroma and floral aroma. The flavour is what is sensed by a combination of taste as sensed by the tongue and the smell as sensed by the nose retro-nasally. Thus, both volatile components as well as non-volatile components are responsible for flavour. Tea tasters evaluate flavour in terms of three descriptors viz. tea flavour, fresh, green and floral flavour.
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Hot instant tea is a product which contains no water insoluble matter. This hot instant tea product is fully soluble in hot water and this product can be consumed as such without any filtration. The conventional process to prepare hot instant tea is described in the reference book Tea - Cultivation to Consumption' edited by K. C. Wilson & M. N. Clifford & published by Chapman & Hall (1992). The typical process involves taking the desired raw material (e.g. black tea), which is extracted using hot water in a multi-stage counter-current extractor. The ratio of tea: water is typically between 1: 6 and 1:12 on dry basis. The tea liquor/extract is separated from the spent tea leaf by passing it through a screw press. This extract containing about 3.5-4% tea solids, is clarified up by removing coarse and fine particulates by deleafing in a centrifuge. Subsequently, the extract is concentrated to 35-40% solids in an evaporator. This concentrate is spray dried to get the Hot Instant Tea powder.
The present inventors during their extensive consumer research have realised that one of the drawbacks of hot-instant tea products available is that the consumers find that such products lack the desired flavour and aroma impact. Several publications are available which have sought to solve this problem.
US3966986 (Tenco Brooke Bond, 1976) discloses a method for enhancing the flavour and aroma of a final tea beverage prepared from a soluble tea, e.g., a concentrated tea extract or a dried soluble tea, by adding a flavoring agent to the soluble tea to produce a final tea beverage containing about 0.01-25 ppm of the added flavoring agent. The flavoring agent, having different preferred compositions for cold and hot-water soluble products, includes up to 39 selected flavoring constituents in specified amounts. The present inventors have found that although there is some flavour improvement using the disclosure of this patent, the product does not meet the desired impact that one gets with freshly brewed tea.
JP2002272374 (Sato, 2002) describes a method for producing a tea flavour having flavour almost similar to that of tea obtained by a regular tea drinking method and to provide instant tea mixed with the flavour. The method of making the tea flavour comprises shifting a flavour component extracted from tea leaves by a
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known method such as a regular water extracting method, steam distillation technique, distillation under reduced pressure or solvent extraction process to oil and fat with 60-100% of the fatty acids composed of C6-C10 fatty acids and collecting the oil and fat containing tea flavor through phase separation.
The present inventors have studied the above prior art documents and other documents and have come to the conclusion that none of the prior art meet the desired flavour impact that is provided by freshly brewed tea. After working assiduously by characterising the flavour profile of freshly brewed tea and trying to mimic that flavour in a hot instant product by adding flavours, the inventors surprisingly found that it is necessary to mix a highly selective amount of hot instant black tea powder with a highly selective amount of hot instant green tea powder and a tea flavouring component before the desired flavour impact can be obtained.
Combination of instant black and green tea is also known.
US5612079 ( Nestec, 1997) discloses an instant tea soluble in cold water prepared by extracting a mixture of green tea leaves and black tea leaves with hot water, wherein the leaves of the mixture are, by weight, in ratio of green leaves to black leaves of from 4:1 to 2:1, under a pressure of from 1 atmosphere to 2 atmospheres, and then, the extract is concentrated and dried to obtain a powder. This invention is directed to increase the yield of the cold water soluble tea, as compared to the prior art known at that time. This instant tea composition having both black and green tea also does not meet the flavour impact desired by consumers.
To the knowledge of the present inventors no prior art is available which combines the unique qualities of hot instant black tea and hot instant green tea in the highly selective concentration ranges, which has been arrived at by the inventors along with a tea flavour to provide a hot instant tea product which has the flavour impact of freshly brewed tea.
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It is thus an object of the present invention to provide for a hot instant tea product that has improved flavour impact as compared to the products available in the prior art.
It is another object of the present invention to provide for a hot instant tea product that, in addition to having improved flavour impact, provides improved aroma.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide for a hot instant tea product that has aroma and flavour comparable to freshly brewed tea.
Summary of the invention
Thus according to one aspect of the invention there is provided a solid hot-water soluble tea composition comprising:
(a) 30 to 99.5 wt% hot-instant black tea;
(b) 0.5 to 30 wt% hot-instant green tea; and
(c) tea flavouring component.
It is particularly preferred that the tea composition comprises black tea volatile condensates.
According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a process to prepare a solid hot water soluble tea composition comprising the step of mixing 30 to 99.5 wt% hot-instant black tea with 0.5 to 30 wt% hot-instant green tea and tea flavouring component.
Detailed description of the invention
The present invention provides for a hot instant tea product. By this is meant a tea product to which the consumer just needs to add hot water to completely dissolve all of the product and the beverage is ready to drink. There is no need for filtration of the beverage as there is no insoluble tea material. The consumer may add other additives of his choice e.g. sugar, milk or lemon as per his taste but the beverage prepared in hot water has all the flavour impact of freshly brewed tea.
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The tea composition has selective amounts of hot instant black tea. By hot instant black tea is meant a tea product which contains material obtained from extraction of the water soluble materials from black tea by using hot water. The tea composition of the invention preferably comprises 35 to 99%, more preferably 40 to 97% hot instant black tea by weight of the tea composition.
The tea composition also has selective amounts of hot instant green tea. By hot instant green tea is meant a tea product which contains material obtained from extraction of the water soluble fraction from green tea using hot water. The tea composition of the invention preferably comprises 0.5 to 30%, more preferably 1 to 20% hot instant green tea by weight of the tea composition.
The present inventors found that compared to freshly brewed black tea, hot instant black tea is found lacking in the typical tea taste and typical tea flavour. Inclusion of the flavouring component in the hot instant black tea did not meet the desired taste and flavour of fresh brewed black tea. In contrast, hot instant green tea has a typical bitter and slight astringent taste. The present inventors surprisingly found that a combination of hot instant black tea with hot instant green tea and tea flavouring component provides the tea composition with the right level of tea taste and flavour which is comparable to freshly brewed black tea.
The tea composition also comprises added tea flavouring component. The tea flavouring component may be of natural origin i.e it may be selectively extracted from tea. Alternatively the compounds forming the tea flavouring component may be nature identical i.e the individual compound or compounds forming the flavouring component may be synthetically prepared but all of the those compounds are known to be present in black tea . Tea flavouring component is preferably a compound selected from cis-3-hexanol, linalool, p-ionone, phenyl ethyl alcohol, phenyl acetaldehyde or trans-2-hexenal. A highly preferred aspect provides for all of the above compounds in selective amounts to be included in the tea composition. Inclusion of these compounds in selective amounts or preferably in selective combinations gives the tea composition a correct balance of woody, hay and fresh green profiles that are the flavour notes consumer have
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come to associate with fresh brewed tea. Preferred total amount of these compounds in the tea composition of the invention is in the range of 100 to 10000 ppm, more preferably in the range of 200 to 4000 ppm, by weight of the tea composition. Other flavouring compounds may also be present in the tea flavour of the invention. Examples of such other flavouring compounds include n-Hexane, Hexanal, Benzaldehyde, Methyl salicylate, Geraniol, and Dodecanal. The tea flavouring components present in the tea composition of the invention is preferably encapsulated in a binder. Suitable binders for encapsulating the tea flavour in the present invention are selected from food grade polysaccharides, gums, or polymers more preferred binder being a polysaccharide. Preferred polysaccharides are maltodextrins, modified starch and gum acacia, most preferred being maltodextrins. The tea flavouring components are preferably encapsulated in the binder in a weight ratio of 1:1000 to 20: 100.
The tea composition of the invention optionally comprises black tea volatile condensates. By black tea volatile condensates is meant the volatile components of black tea that are produced during any heat treatment of black tea e.g during the hot extraction step that are captured by condensation and recovered. The black tea volatile condensates contain a high percentage of tea aroma compounds. The recovery is usually in the form of an oil-in-water dispersion. This dispersion may be concentrated to have high content of oil. Preferably it is made into a solid form with use of suitable binders. In the present invention the black tea volatile condensates are captured during the extraction step of the hot instant black tea. The black tea volatile condensates, when present, are preferably in the range of 1 to 500 ppm, more preferably in the range of 5 to 75 ppm by weight of the tea composition.
The black tea volatile condensates are preferably encapsulated in a binder. Suitable binders for use in the tea composition of the present invention are selected from food grade polysaccharides, modified polysaccharides, gums, or polymers more preferred binder being a polysaccharide or modified polysaccharide. Preferred polysaccharides are maltodextrins, modified starch and gum acacia, most preferred being maltodextrins. Maltodextrin is an product obtained by controlled and partial hydrolysis of starch. It is a product midway
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between starch and glucose. The product thus obtained is refined by clarification, carbon treatment, ion exchange and then spray drying to a desired moisture level. Maltodextrin is a white powder which is very bland in taste with very little sweetness.
The binder, when used, serves the purpose of encapsulating the black tea volatile condensates. The black tea volatile condensate is usually a dilute mixture of aroma compounds in water. The condensates are mixed with the binder and the mixture is dried to a powder form. This black tea volatile condensates are preferably mixed with the binder in a weight ratio in the range of 1:5 to 1:5,00,000.
Thus, the tea composition preferably comprises binder which may be present along with the tea flavouring component. When the tea composition comprises black tea volatile condensates, the binder may be present along with the black tea volatile condensates. The same or different binders may be used for the two purposes. The binder is preferably present in 0.1 to 80%, more preferably 5 to 55% by weight of the tea composition.
The tea composition preferably comprises not more than 10%, more preferably not more than 5% moisture by weight of the tea composition.
The second aspect of the invention provides for a process to prepare a solid hot water soluble tea composition comprising the step of mixing the hot-instant black tea with the hot-instant green tea and tea flavouring component in the selected amounts.
When the tea composition comprises black-tea volatile condensate, the process comprises the mixing step to include the addition of the black tea volatile condensates. Preferably the black tea volatile condensates are in powder form.
The solid hot-instant black tea is preferably prepared using a process comprising the steps of (i) extracting the water soluble components of black tea in water at a temperature in the range of 60 to 100°C; (ii) separating the hot-water soluble
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extract from the insoluble matter; (iii) concentrating the extract to get a concentrate (ii) and drying the concentrate to a powder. The ratio of black tea to water in the extraction step is preferably in the range of 1: 6 to 1:12, more preferably in the range of 1: 8 to 1:10. The step of extraction is preferably preceded by treating black tea with a cell wall digesting enzyme e.g. cellulose, pectinase, or hemicellulase. A highly suitable enzyme is VISCOZYME available from Novo.
The extract is preferably cooled to a temperature in the range of 4 to 50 °C before the step of concentrating the extract. The step of concentrating the extract is preferably carried out in a low temperature, short residence time evaporator. Suitable evaporators include scraper surface evaporators and wiped film evaporators. Suitable process conditions for carrying out the evaporation are temperatures in the range of 40 to 70 °C and pressures in the range of 10 to 350 mm Hg absolute. The concentrate is then preferably cooled to a temperature in the range of 4 to 50 °C before it is dried. Any known process and corresponding equipment for drying may be used e.g. rotary vacuum drier, flash drier or spray drier. A spray drier is particularly preferred.
It is preferred that the volatile components produced during the above step of extracting the water soluble components of black tea are recovered by condensation. A more preferred process comprises the step of encapsulating the volatile components with a binder. The volatile components and binder are preferably mixed in weight ratio of from 1: 5 to 1:5,00,000. The mixture of the volatile components and the binder is then dried to a powder. Any drier may be used but the most suitable dryer is a spray drier.
Examples
The invention will now be demonstrated with examples. The examples are by way of illustration only and do not limit the scope of invention in any manner.
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Quantitative descriptive Analysis (QDA) data of various hot instant tea compositions
Four tea compositions as shown in Table -1, were prepared by taking the various ingredients present in each composition in the dry solid form and physically mixing them to a form a uniform mixture.
Table -1

Example A B 1 2
Hot instant black tea, grams 80 80 80 80
Hot instant green tea, grams 6 - 6 6
Flavouring component, grams - 0.08 0.08 0.08
Black tea volatile condensate, ppm by weight of mixture - - - 50
The flavouring component in the above samples had the compounds cis-3-hexanol, linalool, p-ionone, phenyl ethyl alcohol, phenyl acetaldehyde or trans-2-hexenal present in it.
Samples of hot tea beverage for tasting by the panellists were prepared as follows:
About 100 ml of a mixture of milk and water (35:65 wt ratio) was taken and brought to a boil. To this boiled mixture, 1.5 grams of the tea composition (as shown in Table - 1) and 5 grams of sugar were added and stirred to form the beverage for tasting by the panellists. Each of the four samples were tasted by 12 panellists. The samples were scored monadically by each of the panellists for tea taste and flavour. The scores were analysed and the results are given in Table -2.
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Table -2

Samples Composition having Panelists who preferred one sample over the other
Example - A Hot instant black tea + Hot instant green tea 4
Example -1 Hot instant black tea + Hot instant green tea + flavour 8
Example - B Hot instant black tea + flavour 4
Example -1 Hot instant black tea + Hot instant green tea + flavour 8
Example -1 Hot instant black tea + Hot instant green tea + flavour 4
Example - 2 Hot instant black tea + Hot instant green tea + flavour +black tea volatile condensates 8
The data in Table - 2 indicates that the composition as per the invention (Example - 1) is preferred by more panellists as compared to compositions of the prior art (Examples A and B). Further, a more preferred composition of the invention (Example -2) is more liked by the panellists as compared to the basic composition of the invention (Example - 1).
The invention thus provides for a hot instant tea product that the consumers find more preferable in terms of taste and flavour as compared to compositions of the prior art.
Dated this 7th day of September 2007

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