Development of green, black, and oolong tea from Cosmos caudatus

Abstract

Ulam raja or Cosmos caudatus has been traditionally used for improving blood circulations and recommended for bone building of its high calcium content. Due to the presence of abundant antioxidant capacity, C. caudatus is seems to be potential as good source of natural antioxidant to prevent the development of chronic diseases as consequences to oxidation process in human body. The main objective of this study was to develop herbal tea product in three types of tea, namely green, oolong, and black tea as functional food. The study aimed to determine the antioxidative activity and total phenolic compound. In this study also had determined the acceptance of sensory attributes of the three types of tea. Methanol was used as extraction solvent and antioxidative assay was done using ferric thiocynate method (FTC) while total phenolic compounds (TPC) was determined using the folin-ciocalteu method. Result from FTC show that no significant difference (p<0.05) was exhibited in antioxidative activity between ulam raja teas extract as compared to BHT. While result from TPC show that ulam raja teas has phenolic content especially ulam raja black teas which has the highest phenolic compound with significant different (p<0.05) between samples. Ulam raja teas samples got low acceptance by panelist in sensory evaluation.