Retour à la page précédente

Tea is mainly processed in the countries of cultivation. However, special processing like decaffeination is also done in Europe. During the decaffeination of black tea by dichloromethane extraction, only very low amounts of polyphenols and aroma compounds are lost. Therefore, this extraction process is favored compared to carbon dioxide extraction. As a byproduct of the extraction process, a very fine tea powder is formed. This powder is much too fine to be included in the tea bags.

Polyphenols and the amino acid theanine present in decaffeinated black tea are bioactive compounds with well-known health effects. The purpose of this project is to valorize tea powder (too small to be used in a tea infusion bag) by:

(1) extraction of known bioactive compounds (polyphenols and theanine);
(2) isolation / purification of theanine and polyphenols;
(3) developing strategies for applications of these extracts in functional foods and
(4) developing prototypes of functional foods in the pilot plant ready for industrial scale-up.

Also, an optimization of the functional food manufacturing process is envisioned in order to maintain bioactive compounds. Therefore, bioactive compounds will be followed during each technological step by validated analytical methods.


A. Culetu, J. Héritier, W. Andlauer: Valorization of theanine from decaffeinated tea dust in bakery functional food, International Journal of Food Science and Technology 2015, 50(2), 413-420

A. Culetu, B. Fernandez-Gomez, M. Ullate, M.D. delCastillo, W. Andlauer: Effect of theanine and polyphenols enriched fractions from decaffeinated tea dust on the formation of Maillard reaction products and sensory attributes of breads, Food Chemistry 2016, 297, 14-23