Physicochemical properties of herbal tea

Abstract

A poster presentation regarding physicochemical properties of herbal tea. Introduction: Herbal tea infusions differ from one another in amounts and composition of different compounds such as polyphenols which are present in them. This can be a result of different manufacturing methods and standardised guidelines related to preparation procedures. The most common group of plant polyphenolic compounds are the flavinoids. Flavinoids have a basic structure consisting of 2 aromatic rings bound by 3 carbon atoms that form an oxygenated heterocycle(Figure 1), termed as the C6-C3-C6 configuration. Based on the type of heterocycle, flavinoids can be divided into 6 subclasses: flavonols, flavones, flavanones, flavanols, anthocyanins and isoflavones. Aims: To determine polyphenolic content in five different commercially available and popular herbal tea infusions and investigate physicochemical properties of the herbal infusions using UV analysis and absorbance.