Vol. 10, Issue 11 (2021)

Author(s):
C Abinaya, J Suresh, K Rajamani, P Vennila and S Ganapathy

Abstract:
Orthosiphon stamineus is a Lamiaceae-family medicinal plant that is native to Tropical Asia. It is used as a diuretic, and can also be used to treat urinary dysfunctions and a variety of other ailments such as rheumatism. Pertaining to java tea’s various health benefits and the commercial importance the herb possesses; it is necessary to standardize the postharvest aspects of Orthosiphon stamineus. With this main objective, to identify the best suited drying method for Java tea leaves (Orthosiphon stamineus) an experiment was conducted at Department of Medicinal and Aromatic crops, Horticultural College and Research institute, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore during the year 2020-2021. The experiment was laid out in Completely Randomized Design with 5 treatments: solar drying, shade drying, cabinet drying (40 ⁰C), cabinet drying (50 ⁰C) and cabinet drying (60 ⁰C) and replicated four times. The results revealed that shade dried leaf samples were better in quality aspects such as retention of biochemical parameters like total phenols, total flavonoids and antioxidant activity. From this study, it was concluded that among the various drying methods adopted, shade drying of java tea leaves for 5 days is an effective method in terms of quality preservance.