Changes and influencing factors of the organoleptic quality of Sichuan brick tea during post-fermentation

Objective To research the organoleptic quality changes and influencing factors of Sichuan brick tea during post-fermentation process.

Method The changes of the organoleptic quality were explored and the contents of tea polyphenol, catechin, theaflavin, thearubigin, theabrownin, soluble protein, amino acid, caffeine, water soluble pectin, soluble sugar and water extracts in the tea samples were measured.The main factors that affected the organoleptic quality changes of Sichuan brick tea during post-fermentation were explored by stepwise regression and path analysis.

Result and conclusion The organoleptic scores of Sichuan brick tea were remarkably correlative to the content of tea polyphenols (R = - 0.957), the content of soluble sugar (R = - 0.922), the content of catechin (R = - 0.876), the content of soluble protein (R = - 0.895), the content of theabrownin (R = - 0.758), the content of water extracts (R = - 0.789, P < 0.01), the content of amino acids (R = - 0.605), the content of thearubigins (R = - 0.599) and the content of caffeine (R = - 0.637, P < 0.05), and the content of water soluble pectin (R = 0.649, P < 0.05).The main biochemical components which affected the changes of organoleptic quality were amino acid, tea polyphenol and soluble sugar.The amino acid has a directly positive influence on the organoleptic quality, but tea polyphenols and soluble sugar have a directly negative influence on the organoleptic quality.