Abstract

Green tea (classified as unfermented tea) gained more attention due to their health benefit. Since green tea included to the heat sensitive product, it required the application of low drying temperature during moisture content removal. In order to avoid the unwanted of metabolic process due to longer drying period, the application of zeolite adsorption for air dehumidication in the fluidized bed drier was investigated. This study focuses on the effect of air flow rate, temperature and zeolite-tea leave ratio on the moisture content and drying time. The longer the drying time, the moisture content of green tea leaves decreases significantly. The fastest decreasing time obtained when applying 0,46 m/sec of air flow rate with 70C of drying temperature and 25:75 of zeolite-tea leave ratio. Decreasing the drying temperature at 50C, longer the drying time than drying at 70C while slower air flow rate (0, 44 m/sec) applied. Modifying the zeolite-tea leave ratio from 25:75 into 75:25, fasten the drying time.

Keywords:

Air dehumidification, fluidized bed drier , green tea , moisture content , zeolite adsorption,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

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Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.