The formation process of green substances in Chrysanthemum morifolium tea

One interesting phenomenon of Chrysanthemum morifolium tea is its formation of a green or dark green color after hours of brewing, and it is important to study the compounds that form this color and whether they might be involved in health benefits. Non-targeted metabolomics could clearly distinguish between green and non-green species by sparse partial least squares discriminant analysis (sPLS-DA) and heat-mapping. We found that the pH was the primary factor in the formation of the green color. Two green precursors (GP1 and GP2) were separated and purified with preparative HPLC. FT-IR analysis and the saccharide content analysis showed that GP1 had the typical characteristics of saccharides. GP2 was identified as chlorogenic acid by ESI-Q-TOF/MS and NMR. We raised the formation process of green substances was caused by the hydrolysates of chlorogenic acid reacting with glycosides or groups attached to the saccharides, which suggests a new mechanism for color-forming reactions.