IIT-K to create revolution in tea market

Kolkata, Feb 6: A few months from now one would not have to waste even ten minutes for making a cup of tea with perfect colour and flavour, as IIT-Kharagpur has come out with a technology of preparing instant brew tea.

Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur's Post Harvest Technology Centre of Agricultural and Food Engineering (PHTCAFE) department have invented a method to prepare brew tea, just like instant coffee.

Talking to UNI over phone from Kharagpur, Prof H N Mishra said his department had been working on the project since the last five years and have successfully found out the formula to prepare instant tea.

Prof Mishra, who passes all his credit to his research scholars working under him, said this technology was time saving and the colour and flavour of the drink, would also be retained by this process.

The instant tea would come in the form of a soluble powder and not in dust or granule form as used now.

''In this case you just need to boil the water and put the mix, that would also contain milk and sugar. It depends upon the company how they launch it in the market. It can come with milk, lemon and ginger flavour,'' he said.

The present process of tea manufacturing is time taking and is an age-old technology in which the green leaf shoots have to go through withering and rolling, whereas, in the new tencholgy the withering would be eliminated, which would save about 16-20 hours, the Prof added.

''We have manufactured the brew darjeeling and CTC tea in a small scale in the laboratory. Many companies have shown keen interest to buy the technology from us and we are now negotiating with them for other commercial activities,'' he said A huge amount of flavour and colour is lost in the present method of drying but in the new process, which involves freeze drying at -35 degrees Celsius, would retain the maximum flavour and colour.

The process had already been patented. Besides, they have also invented the process of instant curd preparation which would be prepared in just 10-15 minutes and would soon hit the markets.

UNI