Sensory optimisation of lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) and pandan (Pandanus amarylifolius Roxb.) herbal tea on several brewing techniques

Conservatively, tea is an aromatic beverage made from dried leaves of tea plant (Camellia sinensis). However, lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) and pandan leaves (Pandanus amarylifolius Roxb.) can also be processed as herbal tea to develop their functional properties. This current study aims to investigate the sensory profiles of the herbal tea as well as to determine the optimum techniques for hot, iced and hot+ice brewings. Spectrum Descriptive Analysis method was conducted by involving 12 trained panellists to develop sensory vocabularies. Meanwhile, the sensory optimization was conducted by Just about Right (JAR) method involving 106 consumer respondents. The Spectrum data shows that 4 out of 12 sensory attributes, including sweet, astringency, lemongrass flavor, and pandan flavor; were significantly affected by different brewing techniques (p-values <0.05). Through Penalty analysis on JAR data, it shows that sweet and pandan flavor were optimum for hot brewing. Meanwhile, the sweet and astringency were optimum for cold brewing. Under current set up, there is no optimum attributes was obtained for hot+ice brew technique. Considering their functional properties, the cold brewed herbal tea shows the most superior among the samples tested as it shows the highest total sugar content, total phenolic compound, and antioxidant activity (p-values<0.05).