Model nose invented by CDAC for tea testing

Kolkata, June 3: Good news for the tea tasters! The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) has developed a model 'nose' which can help detect complex odours and manufacture better quality tea.

ITA Secretary General Manojit Das Gupta said that the instrument, invented by the CDAC, uses sensors to detect and differentiate complex odours.

''An odour stimulus generates a characteristic fingerprint or pattern and based on these patterns the teas can be classified, identified and graded as odour lends flavour to tea,'' he said.

Tea tasters, who manually taste teas by sipping it, rolling it on their tongue and inhaling the smell could now see their jobs being done with this 'nose', which can also act as a 'tongue'.

Its computing system was capable of sensing compounds of tea and predicting scores (or quality standards), which otherwise is manually handled by tea tasters.

He said the equipment was demonstrated recently during a workshop.

The instrument would be available to the growers at Rs 50,000 and the equipment could help improve quality.

UNI