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Key umami taste contributors in Longjing green tea uncovered by integrated means of sensory quantitative descriptive

Xujiang Shan¹, Yongwen Jiang², Shan Zhang³

¹Key Laboratory of Biology, Genetics and Breeding of Special Economic Animals and Plants, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Tea Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou 310008, China; State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China.

|May 18, 2024

Abstract:

Umami taste is a key criteria of green tea quality evaluation. The aim of this study was to comprehensively explore the key umami taste contributors in Longjing tea. The taste and molecular profiles of 36 Longjing green tea infusions were characterized by sensory quantitative descriptive analysis and LC-MS based metabolomics, respectively. By uni-/multi-variate statistical analysis, 84 differential compounds were screened among tea infusions with varied umami perceptions. Among them, 17 substances were identified as candidate umami-enhancing compounds, which showed significant positive correlations with umami intensities. Their natural concentrations were accurately quantified, and their umami taste-modifying effects were further investigated by taste addition into glutamic acid solution. Glutamic acid, aspartic acid, glutamine, theanine, phenylalanine, histidine, theogallin, galloylglucose, 1,2,6-trigalloylglucose significantly enhanced the umami taste. This study uncovered for the first time of some bitter amino acids and galloylglucose homologous series as important umami-enhancers, which provided a novel perspective into the tea taste.

Keywords:

Amino acids Galloylglucose Longjing tea Metabolomics Quantitative descriptive analysis Umami

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