Striking changes in tea metabolites due to elevational effects

Abstract

Climate effects on crop quality at the molecular level are not well-understood. Gas and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry were used to measure changes of hundreds of compounds in tea at different elevations in Yunnan Province, China. Some increased in concentration while others decreased by 100's of percent. Orthogonal projection to latent structures-discriminant analysis revealed compounds exhibiting analgesic, antianxiety, antibacterial, anticancer, antidepressant, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-stress, and cardioprotective properties statistically (p = 0.003) differentiated high from low elevation tea. Also, sweet, floral, honey-like notes were higher in concentration in the former while the latter displayed grassy, hay-like aroma. In addition, multivariate analysis of variance showed low elevation tea had statistically (p = 0.0062) higher concentrations of caffeine, epicatechin gallate, gallocatechin, and catechin; all bitter compounds. Although volatiles represent a small fraction of the total mass, this is the first comprehensive report illustrating how normal variations in temperature, 5 °C, due to elevational effects impact tea quality.

Green Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles Using Tea Leaves from Three Different Elevations

“…The polyphenols constitute up to 30% of the dry weight of young shoots of fresh tea leaves . The content and composition of secondary metabolites in tea depend on ecological and environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, solar radiation, elevation of growing field, etc . High elevation (1400 m) tea contained statistically higher concentrations of volatile compounds and amino acids, compared to low elevation tea (600 m) …”

Changes in Tea Plant Secondary Metabolite Profiles as a Function of Leafhopper Density and Damage

“…Tea quality is important for consumers and farmer livelihoods (Ahmed et al, 2014;Boehm et al, 2019) and is influenced not only by the total concentration of secondary metabolites in tea, but also by the relative proportion of different metabolites (metabolite profile) (Zeng et al, 2019). Tea secondary metabolites are known to vary as a function of multiple environmental and management factors (Ahmed et al, 2019) including plant genotype (Cherotich et al, 2013;Chen et al, 2018;Mu et al, 2018), shade (Sano et al, 2018), elevation (Han et al, 2017;Kfoury et al, 2018b), drought (Scott et al, 2019), precipitation (Ahmed et al, 2014;Kowalsick et al, 2014), temperature (Lee et al, 2010), model of agricultural production (Ahmed et al, 2013;Han et al, 2018), microbes (Singh et al, 2010), and numerous pest insects (Scott and Orians, 2018). These environmental factors are shifting with global change including climate change and are impacting tea quality (Ahmed et al, 2019).…”

Identification of geographical origin of Keemun black tea based on its volatile composition coupled with multivariate statistical analyses

“…). The microclimates of these mountains give rise to the characteristic flavor of tea . Nevertheless, processing using the same technology causes the KBT products to have similar appearances, regardless of their origin.…”