Sensory-Related Metabolites Analysis Reveals The Quality and Taste of Ganpu Tea During the Processing

Abstract

Ganpu tea, as a novel tea product blending the flavor of Pu-erh tea and citrus peel, the changes of sensory quality related non-volatiles during the processing were firstly and fully revealed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and ultra performance liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC–ESI-MS/MS) system. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was employed to correlate non-volatiles with sensory quality traits of color and taste attributes. Total 159 sensory-related non-volatiles were obtained from highly correlated modules (r > 0.9), including 28 flavonoids, 25 lipids, 20 amino acids, 19 nucleotides, 17 organic acids, 15 phenolic acids, 13 alkaloids, etc. Phenolic acids  and flavonoids positively correlated with bitterness were significantly decreased after fixation, while amino acids and lipids positively correlated with umami and sweetness were continuously increased during the fixation and drying process. The findings provided valuable information on sensory changes and correlated metabolite conversions of Ganpu tea during processing.

Keywords: Ganpu tea, non-volatiles, fixation, taste attributes