Abstract:
Freshly plucked Moringa oleifera leaves were processed into green and black herbal teas, due to its nutritional, pharmacological and medicinal properties. The unit operations were plucking, destalking and steaming for green tea or withering, grinding, fermentation for black tea prior to drying, milling, grading and packing. The tea samples were subjected to chemical and microbial load analyses, using standard methods. The results revealed the following ranges: proximate parameters; crude protein (7.25-26.62%), moisture content (10.37-70.48%), crude fat (1.82-2.74%), crude fibre (1.09-19.37%), ash content (0.94-9.75%), carbohydrate (15.31-44.93%); phytochemicals; saponins (2.25-5.50%), flavonoid (6.0-16.50%), steroid (1.05-5.05%) and terpenoid (0.70-1.23%) and anti-nutritional factors; tannin (0.23-1.32%), phytate (5.5-18.75%), cyanide (2.55-12.00%) and alkaloid (0.65-2.20%). The ranges of vitamins detected were; vitamins A (7-35-20.37 mg), B1 (0.11-2.85 mg), B2 (0.07-21.46 mg) and C (8.25-213 mg), while minerals included calcium (465.5-2057.5 mg), phosphorus (74.80-225.00 mg) and iron (8.23-32.15 mg). The microbial profile of green tea revealed 8.34×102 CFU g–1 total viable count, whereas no mould growth was observed in both green and black Moringa tea leaves.
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