The effect of the comparison of fig leaves with stevia leaves and drying time on the quality of fig leaf teabags

Comparison of fig leaves with stevia leaves and drying time were evaluated for their effect on the quality of fig leaf teabags. The study was designed using a factorial completely randomized design with 2 factors: the ratio of fig leaves to stevia leaves (D) and drying time (P). The results of the analysis showed that the ratio of fig leaves and stevia leaves had a very significant effect on the water content, total sugar, and total phenol and had no significant effect on the crude fiber content. Drying time has a very significant effect on water content, total phenol, and crude fiber content, and has no significant effect on total sugar. The interaction between the 2 factors gave a very significant effect on the total phenol. The best fig leaf tea formulation is 95% fig leaf: 5% stevia leaf and 120 minutes drying time with antioxidant activity content of 23.81 g/mL.


Introduction
Tea drinks are beverages containing polyphenolic compounds and tannins. Tea is produced from the infusion of brewed leaves, shoots, and leaf stalks that have been dried first. In general, the process of making tea is by drying the parts of the plant that will be made into tea such as leaves or bark of the plant which aims to reduce the amount of water that will be made into tea. Commercial tea which is usually consumed by the public comes from tea leaves, but at this time there are many tea products derived from other herbal plants besides tea leaves.  [1]. The side effects that result from consuming sugar are not as sweet as it tastes, the more consuming sugar will result in diabetes. One way to reduce the use and side effects of sugar is to make tea with a mixture of stevia as a substitute for sugar in tea. The sweetness of cane sugar is not comparable when compared to stevia, because stevia has a sweetness level of 200-300 times. Stevioside and rebaudioside compounds are the source of the sweet taste produced from stevia leaves. One of the processes of making tea is drying.
One of the processes of making tea is drying. Drying is done to extend the shelf life of the tea. The drying process can be influenced by 2 factors. The first factor is temperature, volume of air flow, and humidity. The second factor is the size of the material to be dried and the initial water content. The length of drying time can also affect the water content of the material, the water content will decrease with the length of the drying time, due to the higher heat energy causing the water in the material to evaporate into the free air [2]. This study aims to find a comparative formulation of fig leaves and stevia leaves to get the best teabags and determine the content of teabags and the antioxidant activity of teabags that can counteract free radicals.

Materials and methods
The fig leaves were obtained from Tin Seedling Farmers in Medan. Stevia leaves were obtained from Tanjung Morawa Stevia Seedling Cultivation. Ginger is obtained from supermarkets in Medan.
Making tea bags is done by sorting the fig leaves and stevia leaves first by washing them with running water so that no sap is left on the leaves. After that the leaves are dried. Then the withering process was carried out by allowing it to stand at room temperature for 18 hours. Dried fig leaves and stevia leaves were added with dry ginger powder with a concentration of 5% in each treatment. The packaging process is carried out by using tea bags made of paper. The finished tea, then brewed with hot water at temperature 80°C for 2 minutes. Samples were stored for 3 days then analysis of quality parameters was carried out on tin tea powder, namely water content was carried out using the AOAC method [3]. An analysis of the quality parameters of fig tea drinks was carried out, namely the total sugar content is carried out by the total sugar method [4], total phenol content is carried out using the Indonesian National Standart method [5] and crude fiber content is carried out by the crude fiber method [4]. The results of the best treatment will be analyzed for quality parameters, namely testing the antioxidant content.

Chemical analysis of fig leaf and stevia leaf raw materials
The results of the chemical analysis of fig leaves and stevia leaves can be seen in Table 1   Stevia leaves besides being a source of sweet taste also contain high total phenols and are directly proportional to the antioxidant activity produced. The use of high stevia leaves will produce a bitter taste, this is due to the high content of tannins and flavonoids in stevia leaves.

Moisture content
The   [6] and the water content of dry stevia leaves is 1.14% [7]. The evaporation process can be influenced by the level of humidity of the material and the temperature around the material [8].
The The highest water content was produced by P1 which was 7.8570% and the lowest was by P3 which was 5.3508%. The drying process with a long time can reduce the amount of water in the sample. The longer the drying time, the more the sample will receive heat so that more evaporation occurs in the material which causes the water content to decrease. Drying temperature and time can affect the process of evaporation of water that occurs during drying [9]. Drying temperature and time have a big effect on the drying process. Where the higher the given temperature will produce uneven results, the use of low temperatures will also take a long time for the drying process. Uneven drying will result in the dried material being damaged quickly so that the shelf life of the material will not last long [10].
The results of the analysis of variance showed that the interaction of the ratio of fig leaves with stevia leaves and drying time resulted in no significant difference in water content.

Total sugar
The  The highest total sugar was produced by D4 which was 8.0268% and the lowest was by D1 which was 5.1501%. The high amount of stevia used will result in a high total sugar. Stevia leaves contain stevioside and rebaudioside compounds as a sweetener source. The higher concentration of stevia leaves also causes a bitter taste in fig leaf teabags. This is due to the content of tannins and flavonoids in stevia leaves [11].  The highest total phenol was produced by D1 which was 5.9494 g GAE/g and the lowest was by D4 which was 4.7712 g GAE/g. The highest total phenol was produced from the  [12]. Based on the results of the raw material analysis, the total phenol in fig leaves is 27.7995 g GAE/g, total phenol in stevia leaves is 24.6614 g GAE/g. The total phenol in dried fig leaves was 5.46 g GAE/g [6] and according to the total phenol content in dried stevia leaves it was 4.50 g GAE/g [13].
The results of the analysis of drying time on the total phenol of fig leaf teabags can be seen in Figure 5. The highest total phenol was produced by P1 which was 6.4928 g GAE/g and the lowest was by P3 which was 4.3610 g GAE/g. The lowest total phenol was produced from the longest drying time. This is because the longer drying time can damage the phenol  Total phenol in dried fig leaves was 5.46 g GAE/g [6] and total phenol in dried stevia leaves was 4.50 g GAE/g [13]. Giving too high and too long heat during the drying process will result in a decrease in the total phenol content, because phenolic compounds are easily oxidized due to excessive heat [14]. The total phenol content will decrease during drying, this is greatly influenced by temperature and drying time [15]. In fact, the antioxidant activity is directly proportional to the total phenol, where the lower the total phenol of a material, the lower the antioxidant activity. The highest crude fiber content was produced by P1 which was 16.1614% and the lowest was by P3 which was 14.8570%. Crude fiber content is lower with longer drying. The fiber content in fig leaves is included in the insoluble fiber in water. The fiber content contained in stevia leaves such as cellulose and hemicellulose will decrease due to the heating process during drying, because hemicellulose in crude fiber is the first component that is damaged when exposed to heat, this is because hemicellulose has low heat stability [16]. The best quality tea has low crude fiber [17]. Drying time and low fiber content have a positive effect on tea quality and product storage time [18].

Crude fiber content
The results of the analysis of variance showed that the interaction of the ratio of fig leaves with stevia leaves and drying time resulted in no significant difference in crude fiber content.

Antioxidant activity
Determination of the best product is done by making a tabulation table of all analyzed quality parameters. Where sorted from the highest value in each parameter analysis with the highest value generated by D1P1. The D1P1 treatment had the highest total phenol value compared to other treatments, this was because fig leaves contain high levels of antioxidants. Total phenol has a value that is directly proportional to antioxidant activity, it can be seen from the results of research proving that the lower the total phenol, the antioxidant activity will decrease and vice versa [15]. The results of the analysis of the antioxidant activity of the best products are presented in Table 2.   [21]. With the addition of stevia leaves in the manufacture of fig leaf teabags, it causes an increase in antioxidant activity. The high antioxidant activity is also caused by the high content of antioxidant activity in stevia leaves. Free radicals such as metal ions (Fe, Cu) will be bound by flavonoid compounds which are included in the antioxidant group which will produce free radicals by catalyzing the reaction [22]. Antioxidant activity can be seen from the phenol content, the higher the phenol content, the higher the antioxidant activity in the material [23].