Abstract:
Objective Difference in chemicals of black teas made of leaves of varied grades plucked from Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze cv. Jinmudan was determined, and a discriminant model to differentiate the products established.
Method Jinmudan tea leaves of 21 super-grade and 14 1st grade were collected from the main tea producing areas of Fu'an city in Fujian province. Contents of 15 minerals and 15 rare earth elements in the teas made were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. A multilayer perceptron (MLP), or neural network, discriminant analysis was performed to construct a regression model on the analytical results with the accuracy of differentiating the teas made from different grades of leaves evaluated by correlation analysis, linear discriminant analysis (Fisher), and multivariate statistical methods.
Result The minerals in the black teas ranked in content as K>Ca>Mg>Mn>Al>Na>Fe>Zn>Cu>Pb>Sn>Hg>As>Se>Cd, with the 1st four minerals constituting 96.09% of the total. The contents of rare earth elements ranked as Ce>La>Y>Nd>Pr>Sm>Gd>Dy>Yb>Er>Ho>Tb>Eu>Tm>Lu, with Ce being on the top of the list. There were significant positive correlations between Al and Ca and between Fe and Zn, and negative correlations between Cu and some rare earth elements. Among the rare earth, except Ce, significant positive correlations were found between two elements. The linear discriminant analysis (Fisher) showed that the accuracy of the prediction model was 91.4%. Combined with the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) and significance analysis, Al, As, and Ca at area under curve >0.7 and P<0.05 (Ca contributed the most) were selected as the characteristic elements with unique fingerprints of the various black teas. The MLP discriminant analysis showed the accuracy on the training group to be 93.8% with the 1st level at 77.8%, and on the test group, 100% with the 1st level at 60%. Thus, the secured model appeared to be capable of adequately differentiating the Jinmudan black teas made of varied grades of leaves.
Conclusion The minerals and rare earth elements contained in the Fu'an Jinmudan black teas indicated that Al, Ca, and As were the key indicators that could effectively distinguish the teas made of different grades of leaves. A means to facilitate product quality verification of Jinmudan teas on the market was made available.