Metabolomic Analysis Reveals the Composition Differences in 13 Chinese Tea Cultivars of Different Manufacturing Suitabilities

Background: Green tea and black tea are manufactured using appropriate tea cultivars in China. However, the metabolite differences relating to the manufacturing suitability of tea cultivars are unclear. In the present study, we performed a non-targeted metabolomic analysis on 13 Chinese tea cultivars using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry to investigate comprehensively the metabolite differences between cultivars suitable for manufacturing green tea (GT cultivars) and cultivars suitable for manufacturing both green tea and black tea (G&BT cultivars).

Results: Multivariate statistical analysis and cluster analysis divided the 13 cultivars into two groups, namely GT cultivars and G&BT cultivars, which correlated with their manufacturing suitability. The GT cultivars contained higher levels of flavonoid glycosides, whereas the G&BT cultivars contained higher levels of catechins, dimeric catechins, phenolic acids and alkaloids.

Conclusion: Metabolic pathway analysis revealed that the flavonoid pathway inclined toward the synthesis of flavonoid glycosides in GT cultivars, whereas it inclined toward the synthesis of catechins and phenolic acids in G&BT cultivars. The results of the present study will be helpful for discriminating the manufacturing suitability of tea cultivars and investigating their breeding. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.