Abstract: Disclosed is a process for recovering volatile aroma compounds from a tea material. The process comprises the steps of: generating aroma-laden vapours at a pressure of from 0.5 to 1.4 bar absolute from the tea material contacted with water or water vapours, and then condensing the aroma-laden vapours to recover aroma condensate. The process is controlled such that the mass of aroma condensate generated per unit dry mass of tea material is greater than 2 and the aroma-laden vapours comprise no more than 1% by weight entrained liquid.

Abstract: Disclosed is a process for recovering volatile aroma compounds from a tea material. The process comprises the steps of: incubating the tea material in an aqueous medium; subjecting the incubated tea material to evaporation to obtain aroma-laden vapours; and condensing the aroma-laden vapours to recover an aroma condensate comprising volatile aroma compounds. The tea material is subjected to a step of extraction of soluble solids prior to step (a) and the aqueous medium in step (a) comprises an enzyme selected from cellulase, pectinase, ?-glucosidase, primeverosidase or a mixture thereof.