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Various preparation conditions of tea infusion: a worldwide questionnaire

Maysoon AlHafez (Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, Damascus University, Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic)
Fadi Kheder (Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, Damascus University, Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic)
Malak AlJoubbeh (Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, Damascus University, Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic and Syrian Private University, Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic)

Nutrition & Food Science

ISSN: 0034-6659

Article publication date: 11 July 2016

694

Abstract

Purpose

There are many variations of brewing techniques which can impact both flavor and chemistry of the brew significantly. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to understand and identify the most common conditions used among a relatively large sample of worldwide tea consumers for preparing tea drinks.

Design/methodology/approach

An electronic questionnaire was formed via Google Drive© and distributed publicly online from 12 November 2014 to 9 January 2015. It contained 18 questions divided into sections. The valid answers received from 2,690 person were coded and statistically analyzed using SPSS 20.0 to calculate the frequencies, categorize the data into observed variables by using cross-tabulation and compare the observed data with the author expectations by using the chi-square test technique. Results were presented as (frequency; percent).

Findings

The results showed that a lot of tea-drinking respondents add sugar to their drink (2,242; 87.4 per cent). The great majority of respondents would drink their tea with additives (natural flavoring) (1,814; 70.7 per cent). Furthermore, there was a significant association between the number of tea drinkers and their gender and country of residence (p < 0.05), while the age of the respondents was not a significant factor affecting tea drinking. The same was observed about the association between number of people using additives and their gender, country of residence and age. Most of the participants thought that adding sugar would decrease tea’s health benefits, while adding some natural flavoring would increase it.

Originality/value

These most common conditions used among tea consumers can guide further conducted researches on tea drink to have more impact on people’s ways and understanding of different tea infusion preparations.

Keywords

Citation

AlHafez, M., Kheder, F. and AlJoubbeh, M. (2016), "Various preparation conditions of tea infusion: a worldwide questionnaire", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 46 No. 4, pp. 583-594. https://doi.org/10.1108/NFS-09-2015-0106

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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