A Complete Analysis of the Processing Technology and Methods for Fresh Peach Fruit Tea

Fresh peach fruit tea is one of the most popular fruit juice drinks on the market today. Its processing technology is introduced as follows:

1. Raw material selection

Select fully ripe, fresh peaches with good flavor, abundant juice and no pests or diseases. Peaches that are not ripe enough should undergo after-ripening.

2. Raw material pretreatment

1. Cleaning. After the raw materials are selected, wash and brush them with clean water to remove the fuzz. After cleaning, rinse them in a 1% hydrochloric acid solution or detergent solution to remove residual pesticides, then rinse them again in clean water and drain.

2. Cutting in half and removing the pit. Use a halving and pitting machine or do it manually.

3. Soaking for color protection. After halving and pitting, put the raw materials into a mixed solution of 0.1% erythorbic acid and citric acid to soak for color protection.

3. Heating and pulping

Heat the fruit pieces at 90-95°C for 3-5 minutes to soften them, then pass them through a pulper with a hole diameter of 0.5mm to remove the peel.

4. Flavor adjustment

The fruit pulp treated above needs to be adjusted to increase its flavor. During adjustment, add ingredients such as granulated sugar, citric acid and L-ascorbic acid. The proportions are 100kg peach pulp, 80kg 27% sugar solution, 0.45kg citric acid and 0.07-0.2kg L-ascorbic acid.

5. Homogenization and degassing

Homogenization is intended to break the suspended pulp particles into smaller particles that are evenly dispersed in the juice, increase the stability of the juice and prevent separation. The method is to pass the roughly filtered juice through a high-pressure homogenizer, so that the pulp particles and colloidal substances in the juice pass under high pressure through small holes with a diameter of 0.002-0.003mm and become finer particles. In production, a homogenizer at 130-160kg/sq cm is generally used.

During juicing, gases such as oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide easily enter the fruit. Among them, nitrogen can cause oxidation of substances such as vitamin C and pigments and corrosion of tinplate cans. Therefore, degassing must be carried out. There are mainly the following two degassing methods:

1. Vacuum method. Put the juice into a vacuum container and spray it out in a fine mist to degas it. The vacuum degree used in the vacuum method is 91.3-74.8kPa, and the temperature is lower than 43°C.

2. Nitrogen exchange method. The juice flows in from an upright glass cylinder or stainless steel top, and nitrogen is pressed in from the bottom of the cylinder. After the nitrogen is added, countless small bubbles form in the juice, replacing the oxygen in the juice and thereby achieving the purpose of degassing.

6. Sterilization and canning

Heat the juice to 95°C, maintain for 1 minute, and immediately can it while hot.

7. Sealing and cooling

Tighten the bottle cap and invert the can for 1 minute. After sealing, cool rapidly in stages to about 38°C, then store in the warehouse.

The finished fruit tea of qualified quality is pink or yellow-brown, with dark red allowed; the liquid is uniformly turbid, and after standing for a long time there is fine particle sediment: it has peach juice flavor and no off-flavor; the soluble solids reach 10%-14%.