a study of the quality of a local herbal tea and volatiles of parinari ...

A local herbal tea made from F. ancylantha Schweinf is strongly preferred by the
Chilumba community in Karonga region of Malawi. The use of associated genotype in
Zimbabwe as a tea is well documented (Mencherini et al., 2010). Prices of various teas
are quite variable and are dependent on the quality of the tea which is traditionally
assessed by the tea taster. The tea taster trade have a language to describe various quality
attributes of tea infusion which is sometimes difficult to understand to the consumer
(Liang et al., 2005a). There has been need to identify objective and reliable chemical tea
quality parameters to augment the current subjective organoleptic evaluation method in
the assessment of value of tea (Okinda Owour, 2005). It is therefore important to
develop precise chemical or physical methods for the objective estimation of the quality
of tea (Liang et al., 2005a). The quality of F. ancylantha tea leaves has not been
previously established.
1.3 General and specific objectives
The main objective of this study was to investigate the quality of a local herbal tea and
the flavour volatiles of some edible indigenous fruit and vegetable species in Malawi.
The specific objectives are two fold:
i). To determine the content of theaflavins, thearubigins, colour, brightness and volatile
constituents of a local herbal tea.
ii). To establish the identity of volatile constituents of two edible fruits (mobola plum and
monkey orange fruits) and leaf vegetables (cocoyam and cassava).
5