Understanding Young Taiwanese Consumers' Acceptance, Sensory Profile, and Drivers of Liking for GABA Oolong Tea Beverages with Cold Infusions.

The sensory qualities of Taiwanese teas are evaluated by the experts from the Tea Research and Extension Station (TRES) at tea competitions held annually. The prices of Taiwanese teas are also influenced by the results of these tea competitions. However, a tea winning an award and having a high sensory quality and price does not mean that it is liked by Taiwanese consumers. The check all that apply method (CATA) is a scientific method of sensory evaluation. It is able to evaluate the sensory characteristics with consumers and is cheap and time-saving. Twelve samples of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) Oolong tea made by the Taiwan Tea No. 12 cultivar were selected from the first Taiwanese GABA tea competition in 2020. The aim of this research was to study young Taiwanese consumers' acceptability for GABA Oolong tea infusions, and their opinions towards the sensory qualities of teas through questionnaires composed of CATA questions and hedonic scales. Based on the results, the CATA method identified 21 important descriptive terms for GABA tea that were selected by over 20% of consumers. It was found that the consumers like GABA Oolong teas with 13 specific sensory characteristics, but dislike the ones with another 6 specific sensory characteristics. We conjecture that the different process of tea production will affect consumers' preference for GABA Oolong tea. Overall, GABA Oolong tea has the same delightful sensory characteristics as traditional Taiwanese specialty Oolong teas, and is liked by the young Taiwanese consumers.

Capillary-Based Microfluidic Fabrication of Liquid Metal Microspheres toward Functional Microelectrodes and Photothermal Medium.

Liquid metals (LMs) possess tremendous potential applications in flexible electronic devices, heat flow management, and smart actuators. Splitting the bulk LMs into microspheres is of great significance to fabricate free-standing and microscale LM-based functional materials and devices. However, it is difficult to disperse the bulk LMs into microspheres because of their large surface tension and high density. In this work, the capillary-based microfluidic chip is employed to continuously and automatically generate LM microspheres in a large scale. The capillary-based microfluidic fabrication is universally applicable in ionic aqueous solution, hydrophobic solution, and the polymeric aqueous solution. The precise size control of LM microspheres can be easily realized by the co-flowing configuration in the microchannels. The coefficient of size variation of monodispersed LM microspheres can be controlled to as low as 0.47%. The free-standing LM microspheres can be used as functional microelectrodes within a wide temperature range from -19.8 to 20 °C and to fabricate tunable integrated circuits with different output powers. Most importantly, the LM microspheres exhibit photothermal property, which is used to make the optical sensor with linear response and to conduct the solar energy harvesting. The capillary-based microfluidic fabrication of LM microspheres provides a facile and templated methodology for processing bulk LMs into microscale units. The LM microspheres with excellent electrical conductivity and photothermal property hold great promise for the development of miniature soft electronics, light-driven actuators, and energy conversion medium.