Phytopharmaceutical properties of herbal teas circulating in the Nigerian market

We report herein some phytopharmaceutical properties of commonly marketed teas in Nigeria. The organoleptic and physicochemical properties such as color, odor, physical appearance as well as ash value, moisture content, flow properties, pH and solubility were interrogated using standard methods as the measure of their phytopharmaceutical properties. The results show that, all the teas were coarse in nature and the colors ranged from green to brown. Most of the teas are pleasant to minty odor, while the tastes ranged from minty, sweet, bitter to tasteless. The ash values obtained were between 0.7 and 1.00. The pH values ranged between 4.23 and 7.89 with cold infusions having higher pH values than the hot infusions. All the teas investigated had angles of repose between 17.13 and 35.81°, Carr’s index between 4.65 to16% and Hausner quotient between 1.08 and 1.19; they also had moisture content ≤ 10% suggesting adequate processing and storage requirements. The teas investigated had variable physicochemical properties which underscores the need for standardization of teas before approval by regulatory authorities.   Key words: Teas, phytopharmaceutical properties, standardization.