Identification of potent odorants in Japanese green tea (Sen-cha)

Application of aroma extract dilution analysis using the volatile fraction of a Japanese green tea (Sen-cha) sample resulted in the detection of 36 odor-active peaks with flavor dilution (FD) factors between 10 and 5000. Thirty-six potent odorants were identified from 36 odor-active peaks by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and/or the multidimensional GC/MS (MDGC/MS) system. Among these components, 4-methoxy-2-methyl-2-butanethiol (meaty), (Z)-1, 5-octadien-3-one (metallic), 4-mercapto-4-methyl-2-pentanone (meaty), (E,E)-2,4-decadienal (fatty), beta-damascone (honey-like), beta-damascenone (honey-like), (Z)-methyl jasmonate (floral), and indole (animal-like) showed the highest FD factors. Therefore, these odorants were the most important components of the Japanese green tea odor. In addition, 4-methoxy-2-methyl-2-butanethiol, 4-mercapto-4-methyl-2-pentanone, methional, 2-ethyl-3, 5-dimethylpyrazine, (Z)-4-decenal, beta-damascone, maltol, 5-octanolide, 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, and 2-aminoacetophenone were newly identified compounds in the green tea.     

Prediction of Japanese green tea ranking by fourier transform near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy

A rapid and easy determination method of green tea's quality was developed by using Fourier transform near-infrared (FT-NIR) reflectance spectroscopy and metabolomics techniques. The method is applied to an online measurement and an online prediction of green tea's quality. FT-NIR was employed to measure green tea metabolites' alteration affected by green tea varieties and manufacturing processes. A set of ranked green tea samples from a Japanese commercial tea contest was analyzed to create a reliable quality-prediction model. As multivariate analyses, principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least-squares projections to latent structures (PLS) were used. It was indicated that the wavenumber region from 5500 to 5200 cm(-1) had high correlation with the quality of the tea. In this study, a reliable quality-prediction model of green tea has been achieved.     

1H NMR based metabolic profiling in the evaluation of Japanese green tea quality

Classification of tea quality is now mainly performed according to the sensory results by professional tea tasters. However, this evaluation method is inconsistent in differentiating their qualities. A combination of a (1)H NMR technique and a multivariate analysis was introduced to the quality evaluation of green tea by means of a metabolomic technique. A broad range of metabolites were detected by (1)H NMR spectrometry. The principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce the complexity of the (1)H NMR spectra data set and provided the quality discrimination result. It offered an extensive clue for classification and quality assessment without any prepurification method. A set of green teas from a Japanese tea contest were analyzed by (1)H NMR to classify the quality with respect to that judged by tea tasters and to conceive a quality prediction model. Metabolic profiling and fingerprinting of (1)H NMR spectra of green teas with different quality were studied. PCA showed a separation between the high- and the low-quality green teas. The taste marker compounds contributing to the discrimination of tea quality were identified. Reliable prediction models were obtained by the partial least-squares projection to latent structure (PLS) analysis together with a preprocessing filter of both orthogonal signal correction (OSC) and a combination between OSC and wavelet transform algorithms.     

Quality prediction of Japanese green tea using pyrolyzer coupled GC/MS based metabolic fingerprinting

A couple between pyrolyzer and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) has allowed a fast, simple, and low-cost approach to evaluate a quality of Japanese green tea without any sample preparation or derivatization techniques. Using our method, errors from sample preparation could be avoided since raw samples were directly extracted through the extreme heat of the pyrolyzer. In addition, undesired reactions from expensive derivatizing agents, which are commonly needed to treat the samples before analyzing with GC/MS, could be omitted. In order to illustrate the efficiency of this technique, a set of green tea samples from the Tea contest in 2005 in the Kansai area were used. Projection to latent structure by means of partial least squares (PLS) along with orthogonal signal correction (OSC) was selected to explain the relation between green tea's metabolite profiling and its quality. The quality of the model was validated by testing and comparing the predictive ability to the respective model.     

Molecular and sensory studies on the umami taste of Japanese green tea

Aimed at defining the key drivers for the quality-determining umami taste of a high-grade powdered green tea, called mat-cha, a bioactivity-guided fractionation using solvent extraction, solvent precipitation, preparative chromatographic separations, and human psychophysical experiments was applied on freshly prepared mat-cha. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry and one-/two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance studies on isolated fractions led to the identification of l-theanine, succinic acid, 3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoic acid (gallic acid), and (1R,2R,3R,5S)-5-carboxy-2,3,5-trihydroxycyclohexyl-3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoate (theogallin) as umami-enhancing compounds in the green tea beverage, and it can be shown by sensory studies that these compounds are able to raise the umami intensity of sodium l-glutamate proportionally.     

Determination of tannin in green tea infusion by flow-injection analysis based on quenching the fluorescence of 3-aminophthalate

A flow-injection analytical system was developed to determine tannin content in green tea infusions. The flow-injection system is based on measuring the quenching effect of tannin on the fluorescence of 3-aminophthalate. Fluorophore was obtained by auto-oxidation of luminol during solution preparation. System performance was satisfactory for routine analysis (sample throughput >20 h(-1); linear dynamic range for tannic acid, 0.005-0.3 mg/mL; linear dynamic range for green tea tannin, 0.02-1.0 mg/mL; CV < 3%). The flow-injection method is immune from interference by coexisting ascorbate in green tea infusion. Analytical results were verified by the ferrous tartrate method, the Japanese official analytical method.     

Prediction of Japanese green tea ranking by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry-based hydrophilic metabolite fingerprinting

An innovative technique for green tea's quality determination was developed by means of metabolomics. Gas-chromatography coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry and multivariate data analysis was employed to evaluate the quality of green tea. Alteration of green tea varieties and manufacturing processes effects a variation in green tea metabolites, which leads to a classification of the green tea's grade. Therefore, metabolic fingerprinting of green tea samples of different qualities was studied. A set of ranked green tea samples from a Japanese commercial tea contest was analyzed with the aim of creating a reliable quality-prediction model. Several multivariate algorithms were performed. Among those, the partial least-squares projections to latent structures (PLS) analysis with the spectral filtering technique, orthogonal signal correction (OCS), was found to be the most practical approach. In addition, metabolites that play an important role in green tea's grade classification were identified.     

Degradation of green tea catechins in tea drinks

Green tea cateachins (GTC). namely (-) epicatechin (EC), (-) epicatechin gallate (ECG), (-) epigallocatechin (EGC), and (-) epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), have been studied extensively for their wide-ranging biological activities. The goal of the present study was to examine the stability of GTC as a mixture under various processing conditions. The stability study demonstrated that GTC was stable in water at room temperature. When it was brewed at 98 degrees C for 7 h, longjing GTC degraded by 20%. When longjing GTC and pure EGCG were autoclaved at 120 degrees C for 20 min, the epimerization of EGCG to (-) gallocatechin gallate (GCG) was observed. The relatively high amount of GCG found in some tea drinks was most likely the epimerization product of EGCG during autoclaving. If other ingredients were absent, the GTC in aqueous solutions was pH-sensitive: the lower the pH, the more stable the GTC during storage. When it was added into commercially available soft drinks or sucrose solutions containing citric acid and ascorbic acid, longjing GTC exhibited varying stability irrespective of low pH value. This suggested that other ingredients used in production of tea drinks might interact with GTC and affect its stability. When canned and bottled tea drinks are produced, stored, and transported, the degradation of GTC must be taken into consideration.     

Identification of potent odorants in different green tea varieties using flavor dilution technique

Two kinds of pan-fired green teas (Japanese Kamairi-cha and Chinese Longing tea) were compared with the common Japanese green tea (Sen-cha). Application of the aroma extract dilution analysis (AEDA) using the volatile fraction of the Sen-cha, Kamairi-cha and Longing tea infusions revealed 32, 51, and 52 odor-active peaks with flavor dilution factors between 16 and 1024, respectively. (Z)-1,5-Octadien-3-one (metallic, geranium-like), 4-mercapto-4-methyl-2-pentanone (meaty, black currant-like), methional (potato-like), (E,Z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber-like), and 3-methylnonane-2,4-dione (green, fruity, hay-like) showed high flavor dilution factors in all varieties. In addition, 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn-like), 2-ethyl-3,5-dimethylpyrazine (nutty), 2,3-diethyl-5-methylpyrazine (nutty), and 2-acetyl-2-thiazoline (popcorn-like) belonged to the most potent odorants only in the pan-fired green teas. Among these odorants, 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline and 2-acetyl-2-thiazoline were identified for the first time among the tea volatiles.     

超高压提取绿茶汁的初步研究

为研究超高压处理对提高绿茶汁品质的影响,分别以料液比为1︰15和1︰50的绿茶水为原材料,采用常温常压振摇（冷提）、水浴间隔振摇（热提）和超高压（100、300和500 MPa）3种处理方法提取绿茶汁,比较其品质化学成分,分析表明：以相同料液比比较,超高压提取的绿茶汁中游离氨基酸含量均高于冷提和热提,水溶性糖含量低于冷提和热提,茶多酚得率高于冷提。色差分析表明,超高压提取的绿茶汁黄绿色度比冷提和热提的更深。超高压提取对残留的多酚氧化酶和过氧化物酶活性均具有不同程度的钝化作用。     

基于改进YOLOv5s的名优绿茶品质检测

针对实际检测过程中茶叶数量多、体积小、茶叶之间颜色和纹理相似等特点,该研究提出了一种基于YOLOv5s的名优绿茶品质检测算法。首先,该算法在骨干网络层引入膨胀卷积网络,通过增大感受野的方式增强茶叶微小特征的提取。其次,改进特征融合进程,基于通道注意力和空间注意力抑制无关信息的干扰,构建CBAM注意力机制优化检测器。接着根据swin transformer网络结构在多个维度对小尺度茶叶的特征进行交互和融合。最后,配合SimOTA匹配算法动态分配茶叶正样本,提高不同品质茶叶的识别能力。结果表明,改进后的算法精准度、召回率、平均精度均值、模型体积、检测速度分别为97.4%、89.7%、91.9%、7.11MB和51帧/s,相较于基础的YOLOv5s平均精度均值提高了3.8个百分点,检测速度提高了7帧/s。利用相同数据集在不同目标检测模型上进行对比试验,与Faster-RCNN、SSD、YOLOv3、YOLOv4等模型相比,平均精度均值分别提升10.8、22.9、18.6、8.4个百分点,进一步验证了该研究方法的有效性和可靠性。     

基于电子舌技术的绿茶滋味品质评价

该文研究利用电子舌技术快速评价绿茶的滋味品质。试验以“碧螺春”绿茶为研究对象,以绿茶滋味化学鉴定法作为绿茶滋味品质的评价方法,获得的滋味总得分值作为电子舌评价模型的参考测量值。在数据分析过程中,首先对不同生产日期的碧螺春茶汤滋味总得分值和各传感器响应值进行单因素方差分析;然后对比采用偏最小二乘法和最小二乘支持向量机建立电子舌传感器响应值与滋味总得分值之间的相关模型。结果显示不同生产日期对绿茶滋味品质及各传感器响应信号都具有极显著影响;当采用4个主成分时,建立的最小二乘支持向量机模型最优。用独立样本检验模型精度,模型预测值与参考值的相关系数为0.906,预测集均方根误差为4.077。研究结果可为茶叶品质智能化评价提供参考。     

Analysis of acrylamide in green tea by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Optimization of the solid-phase extraction cleanup procedure enabled the GC-MS analysis of acrylamide in tea samples without the interference of bromination by tea catechins. Although polyvinylpolypyrrolidone (PVPP) is available for removing tea catechins from tea extract, the peaks derived from PVPP had the same retention time as brominated acrylamide in mass chromatograms obtained by GC-MS. A considerable amount of acrylamide was formed at roasting temperatures of > or =120 degrees C; the highest acrylamide level was observed when tea samples were roasted at 180 degrees C for 10 min. Higher temperatures and longer processing times caused a decrease in the acrylamide content. Furthermore, an analysis of 82 tea samples showed that rather than the reducing sugar content, the asparagine content in tea leaves was a significant factor related to acrylamide formation in roasted products. The acrylamide level in roasted tea products was controlled by asparagine in the presence of reducing sugars.     

Identification of potent odorants in Chinese jasmine green tea scented with flowers of Jasminum sambac

The odorants in Chinese jasmine green tea scented with jasmine flowers (Jasminum sambac) were separated from the infusion by adsorption to Porapak Q resin. Among the 66 compounds identified by GC and GC/MS, linalool (floral), methyl anthranilate (grape-like), 4-hexanolide (sweet), 4-nonanolide (sweet), (E)-2-hexenyl hexanoate (green), and 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3(2H)-furanone (sweet) were extracted as potent odorants by an aroma extract dilution analysis and sensory analysis. The enantiomeric ratios of linalool in jasmine tea and Jasminum sambac were determined by a chiral analysis for the first time in this study: 81.6% ee and 100% ee for the (R)-(-)-configuration, respectively. The jasmine tea flavor could be closely duplicated by a model mixture containing these six compounds on the basis of a sensory analysis. The omission of methyl anthranilate and the replacement of (R)-(-)-linalool by (S)-(+)-linalool led to great changes in the odor of the model. These two compounds were determined to be the key odorants of the jasmine tea flavor.     

基于漫反射光谱的初制绿茶含水率无损检测方法

茶叶含水率是影响茶叶加工品质的一项重要指标。为了实现茶叶加工中含水率的快速检测,该文提出了一种应用漫反射光谱技术的绿茶初制过程中含水率无损检测方法。采用波长范围在325～1 075 nm 的可见-短波近红外光谱仪,对炒青绿茶在8个加工工序中随机抽取的568个茶叶样本进行漫反射光谱扫描,光谱扫描后立即测量样本的含水率。对于得到的光谱数据,采用小波变换降低其信息维度并提取小波系数,比较小波低频系数对于光谱特征信息的提取能力,结果显示,小波低频系数能够有效提取原始光谱数据中的特征信息。采用3种回归算法：偏最小二乘回归、神经网络和支持向量机分别建立含水率的测量模型。比较发现支持向量机回归模型的结果最优,建模相关系数为0.9985,预测相关系数为0.9875。研究结果表明,漫反射光谱可以用于绿茶含水率的无损、快速检测,小波变换是一种有效的光谱特征提取算法,而且支持向量机回归算法具有高精度和强泛化能力,可广泛用于回归分析。     

绿茶电磁内热滚筒杀青工艺优化

为研究电磁内热滚筒杀青技术对绿茶品质的影响,试验分析了滚筒前段、中段、后段的温度和杀青耗时等因素对杀青叶、绿茶感官品质及化学成分含量的影响,优化了电磁内热滚筒杀青工艺参数,并与其他杀青方式进行了比较,结果表明:当投叶量为150kg/h时,电磁内热滚筒杀青的适宜作业参数为前段筒温270℃、中段筒温250℃、后段筒温190℃、杀青耗时105s。此工艺下杀青叶色泽嫩绿、鲜活、清香浓郁,所制绿茶的感官审评得分较其他杀青方式要高1.5分～3.6分,热能利用率可达50%～60%,作业耗能成本约为0.38元/kg。该研究可为绿茶加工生产提供参考。     

HPLC-MSn analysis of phenolic compounds and purine alkaloids in green and black tea

Tea is a complex mixture containing a range of compounds from simple phenolics to complex thearubigins, many of which have well-recognized antioxidant properties. This paper describes the application of high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS(n)) methods for the rapid and routine analysis of more than 30 phenolics in tea. Green and black tea infusions were injected directly onto a reversed phase HPLC column, and the phenolics eluted using two different mobile phase gradients, one optimized to resolve catechin derivatives and the other, flavonols and theaflavins. Compounds, identified on the basis of their retention time, absorbance spectrum, and MS fragmentation pattern, included (+)-catechin, (-)-epicatechin, theaflavin and their various gallate derivatives, quercetin and kaempferol mono-, di-, and triglycosides, quinic acid esters of gallic acid and hydroxycinnamates, and the purine alkaloids, caffeine and theobromine.     

Polyphenol composition of a functional fermented tea obtained by tea-rolling processing of green tea and loquat leaves

Phenolic constituents of a new functional fermented tea produced by tea-rolling processing of a mixture (9:1) of tea leaves and loquat leaves were examined in detail. The similarity of the phenolic composition to that of black tea was indicated by high-performance liquid chromatography comparison with other tea products. Twenty-five compounds, including three new catechin oxidation products, were isolated, and the structures of the new compounds were determined to be (2R)-2-hydroxy-3-(2,4,6-trihydroxyphenyl)-1-(3,4,5-trihydroxyphenyl)-1-propanone 2-O-gallate, dehydrotheasinensin H, and acetonyl theacitrin A by spectroscopic methods. In addition, theacitrinin A and theasinensin H were obtained for the first time from commercial tea products. Isolation of these new and known compounds confirms that reactions previously demonstrated by in vitro model experiments actually occur when fresh tea leaves are mechanically distorted and bruised during the production process.     

Discrimination of the production season of Chinese green tea by chemical analysis in combination with supervised pattern recognition

High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has been used to quantify levels of free amino acids, catechins, and caffeine in Chinese green tea. Levels of free amino acids and catechins in green tea leaves show obvious variation from spring to summer, which is useful information to identify the production season of commercial green tea. Supervised pattern recognition methods such as the K-nearest neighbor (KNN) method and Bayesian discriminant method (a type of linear discriminant analysis (LDA)) were used to discriminate between the production seasons of Chinese green tea. The optimal accuracy of the KNN method was ≤97.61 and ≤94.80% as validated by resubstitution and cross-validation tests, respectively, and that of LDA was ≤95.22 and ≤93.54%, respectively. Compared with LDA, the KNN method did not require a Gaussian distribution and was more accurate than LDA. The KNN method in combination with chemical analysis is recommended for discrimination of the production seasons of Chinese green tea.