Track: Undergraduate Research Competition

Abstract

This research focuses on determining the opportunity of tea blends in the market and modifying food dehydrator machine to produce dried fruits for tea blends. Therefore, this research will also find adjustments of machine performance to produce dry fruits with optimal drying. This research begins with determining the topics to be discussed, followed by a literature study as a basis, using the reverse engineering method for dissembling and assembling  the machine as a benchmark, then modifying the machine into a new prototype using VDI 2221. From the research, it was found that the combination of product level based on consumer preferences is a tea blend with a sweet taste, medium aroma, price of IDR 25,000 to IDR 35,000, using black tea leaves, with dried fruits, and th number of contents is 50-100 grams. The research also found the optimal performance on a food dehydrator for drying fruits with a slice of the thickness of 0,7 cm, at a temperature of 60°C, 120 minutes of processing time. Before modification, the machine was able to reduce the water content by 91.3% and after modification, the machine was a ble to reduce the water content by 93.8%. Also, it was found that there was an interaction effect between temperature and thickness of the fruit slices on the water content released.