A reduced recombinant consisting of just EGCG, caffeine, L-glutamic
acid and L-theanine was prepared to validate the significance
of the key non-volatile tastants identified from the omission
experiments. L-Theanine was included in the reduced recombinant
due to its complex taste profile, in order to obtain a ‘‘rounded’’ profile,
despite having a DOT value of less than one. The four compounds
were added based on their concentrations in tea sample
no. 2. The panellists were required to evaluate the reduced recombinant
using the half tongue test.