Rare nutritional herbs use in the composition of teas

Thesis prepared: Lithuanian University of Health and Sciences, Veterinary Academy, Food Safety and Quality Department. Supervisor of the Thesis: Prof. Dr. Dalia Sekmokienė. Thesis consists of 48 pages, 10 tables, 22 pictures, 1 appendix and 86 literature sources. Aim of the Thesis: To diversify the range of tea assortment and use the less common nutritional herbs to create the composition, which satisfy the consumer needs and increase the biological value. To investigate the consumer's opinion about the use of these herbs The tasks of the Thesis: To analyze information sources about rare nutritional herbs that were used for the compositions of teas, to create teas compositions and to compole technological description. To make a sensory analysis by several methods. And to analyze comsumers opinion about new teas compositions. Methodology: Creation of tea compositions, sensory analysis (profile test, acceptance test), consumer survey, which results are processed with Microsoft Excel spreedsheet and the SPSS statistical package. Results and conclusions: After completing consumer survey and finding out that even 83,9% consumers would choose the tea compositions with rare nutritional herbs, 5 teas compositions were made: „medutis“, „saldi mėta“, „moterims“, „vakarui“, „baltasis šilkas“. Tea compositions were evaluated with sensory analysis by several methods (profile test and acceptance test). The results of the profile test showed that the sensory flavor and odor properties depended on the composition of the herbs used in tea composition, but all the teas did not have an exeptional strong odos or taste, the tea‘s aroma and taste were characteristic to the herbs – light, pleasant and unassuming. The result of acceptance test showed that the most preffered tea is „medutis“ and the least acceptable is tea „moterims“. Consumer survey revealed that respondents‘ knowlage about rare nutritional herbs was pore, but they would prefer to choose and use tea compositions with rare nutritional herbs, even if this moment the most popular choice is green tea