The Study of Several Applicable Treatments for Serving Butterfly Pea Flower Drinks

Abstract

A wide range of serving methods of butterfly pea flower drinks are available in practice. Three typical variables in the serving method are studied in this research. They are pre-treatment of the petal before extraction (fresh, refrigerated for two days, dried at 45ºC for 48 hours), the method of extraction (brew in hot water 100ºC, brew in hot water 75ºC, boil in water) and the addition of lime juice (no lime, 3.5 g lime added before extraction, 3.5 g lime added after extraction). The volume of water is 125 ml, the weight of the butterfly pea flower is 0.1885 g dry basis, and the time of extraction is 15 minutes. Design Expert® software is applied to analyze the dependent variables or responses (color intensity, violet index, browning index, total anthocyanin, and antioxidant activity) of the drinks. In general, a linear model with interactions of two variables is the fittest model to describe the effect of the three variables to the responses. The addition of lime is the main variable to affect the violet index and antioxidant activity. The method of extraction is the main factor affecting the color intensity and total anthocyanin. In addition, fresh petals result in better quality of butterfly pea drinks than refrigerated and dried petals. The best set of variables to yield the highest antioxidant activity, relatively high anthocyanin content, and relatively high color quality of the drinks is the fresh petal, boil in water, and lime added before extraction. The 95% predicted intervals of total anthocyanin and antioxidant activity of the drinks are 8.26 to 9.77 mg/g petal on a dry basis and 70.33 to 82.49% inhibition, respectively. Meanwhile, the color of the drinks is deep purple (color intensity 2.73 to 3.55, violet index 0.75 -1.33) with relatively low browning index (0.17 to 0.49).

Anthocyanin Extraction and pH-Modulated Color Alterations in Butterfly Pea Flower (Clitoria ternatea L.)

“…The discrepancy arises from the degradation of anthocyanin structures during the drying process. Hot water extraction from fresh BPF yields beverage extracts with elevated anthocyanin levels, as evidenced by a study [19]. The research also established that beverages derived from fresh flowers exhibit enhanced antioxidant activity and superior color quality.…”