<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Anthocyanins are important bioactive supplements that are consumed from multiple foods and beverage products. Screening tea cultivars producing a high level of anthocyanins can help to enrich the edible bioactive supplements. ‘Zijuan’ (ZJ) is a tea cultivar growing purple shoots rich in anthocyanins, but it is susceptible to freezing winter and sprouts late in spring. Hybridisation using ‘ZJ’ as the female parent and an early sprouting cultivar ‘Wuniuzao’ as the male parent was carried out, and four hybrids with purple leaves were obtained. The quality of anthocyanins, catechins, caffeine and amino acids in shoots with three leaves and a bud of the purple leaf hybrids obtained were determined based on the field investigation on sprouting time in spring, winter resistance and leaf yield. It showed that hybrid ‘B-2’ sprouted earlier in the spring, contained a higher level of anthocyanins and also showed good performance in winter resistance than its female parent ‘ZJ’. It also showed that black tea processing induced a marked decrease in foliar anthocyanins, but green tea processing had little effect on the foliar anthocyanins. Purple tea leaves should be prepared into unfermented green tea instead of fermented black tea to preserve the high level of anthocyanins in the final tea products.</p></abstract>

Anthocyanins are important bioactive supplements that are consumed from multiple foods and beverage products. Screening tea cultivars producing a high level of anthocyanins can help to enrich the edible bioactive supplements. ‘Zijuan’ (ZJ) is a tea cultivar growing purple shoots rich in anthocyanins, but it is susceptible to freezing winter and sprouts late in spring. Hybridisation using ‘ZJ’ as the female parent and an early sprouting cultivar ‘Wuniuzao’ as the male parent was carried out, and four hybrids with purple leaves were obtained. The quality of anthocyanins, catechins, caffeine and amino acids in shoots with three leaves and a bud of the purple leaf hybrids obtained were determined based on the field investigation on sprouting time in spring, winter resistance and leaf yield. It showed that hybrid ‘B-2’ sprouted earlier in the spring, contained a higher level of anthocyanins and also showed good performance in winter resistance than its female parent ‘ZJ’. It also showed that black tea processing induced a marked decrease in foliar anthocyanins, but green tea processing had little effect on the foliar anthocyanins. Purple tea leaves should be prepared into unfermented green tea instead of fermented black tea to preserve the high level of anthocyanins in the final tea products.

Screening tea hybrid with abundant anthocyanins and investigating the effect of tea processing on foliar anthocyanins in tea

Folia Horticulturae

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Anthocyanins are important bioactive supplements that are consumed from multiple foods and beverage products. Screening tea cultivars producing a high level of...

Screening tea hybrid with abundant anthocyanins and investigating the effect of tea processing on foliar anthocyanins in tea

Article Category: Research Article

Published Online: Nov 06, 2020

Page range: 279 - 290

Received: Jul 04, 2020

Accepted: Oct 01, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fhort-2020-0025

Keywords
anthocyanins, black tea, fermentation, green tea, hybrid

© 2020 Jian-Guang Hu et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Screening tea hybrid with abundant anthocyanins and investigating the effect of tea processing on foliar anthocyanins in tea

Article Category: Research Article

Published Online: Nov 06, 2020

Page range: 279 - 290

Received: Jul 04, 2020

Accepted: Oct 01, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fhort-2020-0025

Keywordsanthocyanins, black tea, fermentation, green tea, hybrid

© 2020 Jian-Guang Hu et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
anthocyanins, black tea, fermentation, green tea, hybrid