A method to enhance the taste of tea with methyl salicylate
Opportunity
Whether you call it tea or chai, the aromatic brew is the second most widely consumed drink in the world—coming just second to water. Unsurprisingly, the global tea industry is booming, with a market size of US $12.63 billion in 2018 alone according to Grand View Research. In recent years, however, tea drinkers have shown an increasing preference for organic and natural ingredients that contain minimum added chemicals. Given this, innovations in natural tea flavours offer a ripe opportunity for growth especially in markets like the United Kingdom and North America.
Extracting natural flavours from tea leaves typically requires massive amounts of raw material. To make the process more efficient, food scientists are turning to fermentation, where yeasts convert sugars present in the leaves to alcohol and carbon dioxide. These products modify and enhance the tea’s natural flavours and aromas—giving rise to unique taste profiles without needing more raw material. Even better, flavours that arise from microbial fermentation are labelled as ‘natural’ under US and EU regulations, boosting their consumer appeal. With the growing demand for natural tea flavours, there is a corresponding need to identify new flavour compounds and alternative ways of producing them.
Technology
This invention relates to an enriched flavoring for green tea comprising of methyl salicylate and its preparation through yeast fermentation. To produce the flavoring, various concentrations of pasteurised green tea slurries were fermented with seven different types of wine yeasts. The yeast strains were chosen for their abilities to survive and metabolise during fermentation, as well as for their unique ability to convert precursors found in green tea into key aroma compounds that enhance flavour.
Notably, one key aroma compound, methyl salicylate, increased by up to 1200-fold in different fermentation set-ups. This suggests that more natural tea flavours can be obtained even with limited raw materials. Tea enthusiasts will be pleased to know that methyl salicylate has a refreshing taste, imparting fruity and fresh notes into the final fermented tea products. With its pleasant flavour profile, methyl salicylate can be broadly applied in preparing natural tea flavourings, tea extracts and specialty tea beverages. Finally, the wine yeast fermentation of green teas represents a promising strategy to produce unique flavour compounds.
Through yeast fermentation, unique aroma compounds like methyl salicylate can be extracted from pasteurised green tea slurries. The extracted compounds can then be applied in natural tea flavourings, specialty tea beverages and industrial methyl salicylate production.
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