International Conference on Instrumentation, Communication and Information Technology (ICICI) 2005 Proc.

,
August 3 -5 , 2005, Bandung, Indonesia

Measuring Quality of Black Tea From Theaflavins Analysis

Using Secondary Measurement

Melania S. Muntini1), Yul Y. Nazaruddin2), The Houw Liong 3), Lienda Handojo4)
1)
Department of Physics, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) Surabaya, Indonesia
2)
Department of Engineering Physics, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia
3)
Department of Physics, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia
4)
Department of Chemical Engineering, Institut Teknologi Bandung
Jl. Ganesa 10 Bandung 40132, Indonesia
Phone/Fax: +62-22-2508138
E-mail: melania@students.tf.itb.ac.id, yul@tf.itb.ac.id

Abstract – Theaflavins (Tf) is a key compound that
significantly contributes in the quality of black tea.
It undergoes a series of chemical changes during
the fermentation process. Fermentation is one of the
most critical processes in black tea processing.
There are many parameters that significantly
influenced the process including room temperature,
thickness of greendhool, and duration of the
process. In general, it is difficult to measure
theaflavins directly as it involves some chemical
analysis and enzymes for pigment. An alternative
approach, theaflavins is measured indirectly and
inferred from easily made process measurements or
secondary measurements. This inferential method of
measurements employs a scheme which is called a
virtual sensor, which is realized by integrating
artificial neural networks with the Extended Kalman
Filter algorithm. Secondary variables are several
parameters of fermentation process and results of
color analysis of tea liquid, whereas primary
variable is Theaflavins. The data for implementing
this proposed technique were obtained by
conducting several real-time experiments at black
tea factory in Indonesian Tea and Cinchona
Research Institute (PPTK Gambung), West Java.
Results show how the quality of black tea can be
infered indirectly using the proposed technique.The
mean and variance of error between the obtained
output of virtual sensor algorithm and the output
chemical analysis of theflavins were 1,81 x 10 -4
and 5,07 x 10-6 respectively.
Keywords – artificial neural network, black tea,
Extended Kalman Filter, indirect measurements,
Theaflavins, virtual sensor.
involving withering, rolling, fermentation,
drying and sieving. Fermentation is one of
the most critical processes in black tea
processing. During black tea fermentation,
an enzymatic oxidation of tea polyphenols,
especially tea chatechins takes place,
leading to a formation of a series of
coloured chemical compounds, among
other, such as Theaflavins (Tfs) that
determines the characteristics of the black
tea liquors.[1,2,3,6,7,8]. Tfs of the black
tea depends on several The parameters that
has significantly effects in the fermentation
process, i.e. room temperature, thickness of
greendhool, and duration of the process.
Understanding the relationship of liquors
colour to black tea quality would be
interesting for development of methods to
identify black tea quality, chemically and
physically. In general, it is difficult to
measure theaflavins directly as it involves
some chemical analysis and enzymes for
pigment. An alternative approach is
proposed in this research, in which
theaflavins is measured indirectly and
inferred from easily made process
measurement or secondary measurement.

I. INTRODUCTION II. SECONDARY MEASUREMENTS

Black tea is a fermented tea and it is the In the complex process, some variables
one of popular beverages in the world. may be easy or hard to be measured. A
Black tea manufactured is carried out by a primary variable is a process variable that
series of processes on fresh tea leaves, hard to be measured, while a secondary

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International Conference on Instrumentation, Communication and Information Technology (ICICI) 2005 Proc.,
August 3 -5 , 2005, Bandung, Indonesia

variable is an easier one. The direct network because it were proposed in order
measurement is used to measure secondary to deal with the nonlinear systems.
variables. The secondary variables must be
related to primary variables, because the Figure 2 illustrates the block diagram of
primary variables are measured indirectly virtual sensor algorithm or secondary
and inferred from them. This inferential measurement in measuring of secondary
method of measurements employs a variables.
scheme that is called secondary
measurement or virtual sensor[9]. Virtual
sensor is realized by integrating Artificial
Neural Networks with Extended Kalman
Filter (EKF) algorithm. Neural Networks
are general tools in modelling nonlinear
function since its ability to approximate
any nonlinear functions with any desired
accuracy.

The structure of neural networks that is

used in this research is restricted to Direct Fig. 2. Structure of secondary
Recurrent Neural Network (DRNN). measurement
DRNN structure consisting of three layers,
input, hidden and output layer respectively, Suppose θ represents all trainable
has been applied in modeling of the parameters of the network (i.e. the weights
process. The neural networks structure of and biases), the model can be rewrite as
DRNN can be seen in Fig. 1. follows :

x 1 ( t + 1) = f 1 ( x1 ( t ), Z ( t + 1), θ 1 ( t ),
11
Wj
(4)
W jk
10 I ( t + 1)) + ξ 1 t )
Wj
21
x 2 (t + 1) = f 2 ( f1 (.),θ 2 (t )) + ξ 2 (t ) (5)
I n (k) Y (n)
Z ( t + 1) = Z ( t ) + ζ ( t ) (6)
y (t ) = x 2 (t ) + v (t ) (7)
X j (n)
where weight and biases at hidden and
S j (n)
1b
output layer are θ1, θ2 respectively,
Wj
{ξ1(t)}and {ξ2(t)} are zero-mean Gaussian
White Noise sequence uncorrelated with
Fig. 1. A DRNN structure
{v(t)} and with a pre assigned positive
definite Var[ζ(t)] = S(t). Based on
It gives the following relation
x(t ) = [x1 (t ) x 2 (t ) Z (t )] , the estimation
T
(1)
N
S j (n) = ∑Wjk Ik (n) +Wj X j (n −1) +Wj
10 11 1b

k=1
M
(2)
of [
xˆ (t ) = xˆ1 (t ) xˆ 2 (t ) Zˆ (t ) can
T
be ]
∑
21
Y (n) = W j Xj ( n ) obtained. After linearization, the model
j=0
can be described using the following state
X j ( n ) = f ( S j ( n )) (3) model
x(t + 1) = F (t ) x(t ) + G(t )ξ (t ) (8)
where I, W, b, and f are input, weight at y (t ) = H (t ) x (t ) + ν (t ) (9)
hidden layer, weight, bias and activation
function. Extended Kalman Filter where {ξ(t)} and {v(t)} are assumed to be
Algorithm is used in training the neural uncorrelated zero-mean Gaussian White
Noise sequences. F(t), G(t), and H(t) are

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International Conference on Instrumentation, Communication and Information Technology (ICICI) 2005 Proc.,
August 3 -5 , 2005, Bandung, Indonesia
assumed to be known matrix-valued. The
Extended Kalman Filter procedures to
estimate the state are as follows
[
K(t) = P(t | t − 1)H(t)T R(t) + H(t)P(t | t − 1)H(t)T (10)
P (t | t ) = P (t | t − 1) − K (t ) H (t ) P (t | t − 1)
⎡ xˆ1 (t ) ⎤ ⎡ xˆ1 (t | t − 1) ⎤
⎢ xˆ (t )⎥ = ⎢ xˆ (t | t − 1)⎥ + K (t )[ y (t ) − H (t ) xˆ (t | t − 1)]
⎢ 2 ⎥ ⎢ 2 ⎥ 260C. Duration of fermentation was 5, 20,
⎢⎣ Zˆ (t ) ⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ Zˆ (t | t − 1) ⎥⎦
(12)
This paper will show how Extended
Kalman Filter can be applied as secondary
measurement for theaflavins analysis,
which is the one of tea quality indication.
III. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
III.1. Data collections
For the purpose of modelling, a mini-plant
of fermentation process has been designed
and implemented during the experiment.
The research was conducted at Indonesian
Tea and Cinchona Research Institute
(PPTK Gambung), West Java and the tea
powder was collected from the black tea
factory of this institute. The tea leaf for
processing was obtained from tea
plantation of clone Gambung 14-17 at the
altitude of 1400 m. The tea plants were
allowed to overgrow so that it was possible
to pluck up to four leaves and a bud.
III.2. Processing of black tea using
orthodox method
Tea leaves were heaped in a whitering
through to a thickness of about 20 – 35 cm
and a constant air flow at hygrometer
difference of 1- 20C was maintained for up
14 h. The leaves after whitering were
subjected to orthodox rolling for up to 60
min in a three-cranck single action roller.
The machine rolled leaves were fired at
900C for 30 min to obtain black tea
containing about 3% moisture. Greendholl
is tea leaves after whitering and rolling
proceed before fermentation.
III.3. Fermentation
The greendholl were fermented in the 1.5 x
1 x 1.75 m3 mini-plant process with
] temperature variation between 18 – 260C.
(11) The first experiment assumed that the
temperature was about 180C, the second
about 220C and the third experiment about
30 minutes and continues at every 10
minutes interval until 150 minutes, each for
a greendholl thickness of about 4, 6, 9 and
12 cm. The chemical contents of the black
tea were investigated after fermentation
process with various operation conditions
including duration, room temperature and
thickness of greendholl. Fermentation
process was stopped by drying greendholl
in mini-dryer under inlet and outlet
temperature of 1100C and 900C
respectively.
III.4. Theaflavin analysis
The black tea was analyzed by Robert
Smith method [8] to obtain Tf. This
method applies maximum difference
between maximum length visible wave 380
nm and 460 nm. Metanol or i-butil metil
keton solution was used to dissolve
extraction of black tea [6]
III.5. Results
One indicators of black tea quality is colour
quality. Usually colour quality measured
by tea tasters with visual inspection.
Theaflavins is ones of chemical compounds
that influenced the black tea quality,
particularly in colour quality. Besides, it
also influences on liquor and taste. The
proposed method that used in the research
is to measure Tf using indirect
measurement employing an algorithm
integrating Artificial Neural Network with
Extended Kalman Filter algorithm. Tf
content was analyzed using this algorithm,
in which Tf is unmeasured input on virtual
sensor. Measurable inputs are several
parameters that have significantly effects
during fermentation process, including
room temperature, thickness of greendhool,
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International Conference on Instrumentation, Communication and Information Technology (ICICI) 2005 Proc.,
August 3 -5 , 2005, Bandung, Indonesia
and duration of the process. The output of
virtual sensor is model of colour quality.
Output system is color quality, which is
obtained from the digital photo of color
inspection of tea liquid and it was analyzed
using the software. Data of output system
were obtained from previous research (6).
Comparison between the model of color
quality and output system is shown in
figure 3.
Fig. 3. Comparison between model and system
of color quality
Validation of model and output system was
done using statistical properties.
Fig. 4. Error model and system of colour
quality
Furthermore, the proposed scheme was run
using on-line system and output of this
algorithm will be used to predict un-
measurable input. In the research, the
model is assumed to be perfect and work
properly. On initial running of the
algorithm, there was an error between
output model and output system because
the model accepts less input than the
system, i.e. unmeasurable input. Based on
the error, Tf can be analyzed using
recursive manner. The above procedure can
be viewed as prediction of Tf as shown in
120
figure 2. Moreover, Tf contents of black tea
are denoted by Z(t) in eq (8) – eq (13).
Tf contents will be obtained when the
model and system produced the same
output or the error between them is
acceptable. Using the virtual sensor
algorithm, the model of Tf can be
developed.
Fig. 5. Output of the process and model
Output system that obtained from the first
experiment (with temperature 180C) yields
the smallest Root Means Square Error
(RMSE) which is equal to 0.00031. The
validation of secondary measurement result
and the system, which is the Tf content of
the black tea for fermentation process at
temperature 180C and thickness of wetness
of tea 9 cm, is shown in Fig. 5.
IV. CONCLUSION
An alternative method to measure Tf using
indirect measurement or secondary
measurement has been proposed and
presented in this paper. Secondary
measurement was accomplished using
integration of Neural Networks and
Extended Kalman Filter. The results show
that the proposed method could be applied
to analysis Theaflavins contents in black
tea. Based on Theaflavins contents, the
quality of black tea, in particular colour
quality of infusion, can be measured.
International Conference on Instrumentation, Communication and Information Technology (ICICI) 2005 Proc.,
August 3 -5 , 2005, Bandung, Indonesia

V. REFERENCES

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