Method for Producing Loquat Blended Tea

A blended tea featuring loquat leaves pre-treated through steaming, withering, and aging, combined with small amounts of black tea and ginger.

This technology is a method for producing loquat blended tea by mixing and brewing pre-treated loquat leaves—processed through washing, withering, cutting, steaming, rolling, aging, and drying—with black tea and dried ginger slices in specific proportions, followed by filtration. The blend consists primarily of loquat leaves, followed by black tea, with a small amount of ginger.

Loquat fruit has a short shelf life and is harvested during the hot, humid rainy season, making it prone to quality degradation during storage, which reduces income for farmers. Research has focused primarily on the fruit, leaving the leaves underutilized, and loquat leaf tea has had limited demand due to its bitter and bland flavor profile.

This technology uses a sequence of indoor withering, steaming, rolling, and high-humidity aging to reduce the raw, grassy taste and rough texture of loquat leaves while enhancing their aroma. Black tea and ginger are then added in optimal ratios determined by sensory evaluation. The result is a flavor profile suitable for all ages, where the ginger's heat is subtle and the sweetness is balanced, avoiding the cloying nature of jujube-based teas. Applicable to tea bags, loose-leaf products, cafe herbal tea bases, and regional specialty goods, this method adds commercial value to previously underutilized loquat leaves, diversifying income streams for farmers beyond just the fruit.

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Key Features:

• A ginger preparation step involving peeling, washing, slicing, and drying at 70°C for 72 hours.
• A loquat leaf pre-treatment step involving indoor withering, cutting, steaming, re-withering, rolling, aging at 80% relative humidity, and drying.
• A blending step where pre-treated loquat leaves, black tea, and ginger are mixed in a weight ratio of 1.8:1.05:0.15.
• A brewing and filtration step where the mixture is heated in water and the resulting tea is filtered through a 20 μm to 40 μm filter.

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This invention was developed with support from the Ministry of Education's Bio-Convergence Human Resources Development Program.

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