The chemical base for white tea quality: Oligopeptide, nuculeotides, and beyond

Mingjie Chen

Abstract

Among the six types of chinese tea (green tea, white tea, yellow tea, Oolong tea, black tea, and dark tea), white tea mainly is produced in southeast part of China from several selected tea cultivars. The manufacture of white is the simplest one, constitued by only two steps, they are : prolonged withering and fixation. The white tea is characterized by “umami” taste, and becomes incresingly popular in both international and domestic markets. Previous studies suggested that the relative high contents of free amion acids from white tea attribute to its characteristic taste. Here, we investigated whether other chemicals could potentially contribute to its unique flavour, such as oligopeptides and nucleotides. We also explored the chemical differences among different grades of white tea. Our studies provide new insights about the chemicals to shape white tea flavour.