Difference Analysis on Catechins and Gallic Acid Contents of Tea Resources from Yunnan Province

By using high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC),the gallic acid(GA),catechins(C),epicatechin(EC),epigallocatechin(EGC),epicatechin gallate(ECG) and epigallocatechin gallate(EGCG) contents of 121 tea germplasms from the China National Germplasm Tea Repositories(CNGTR) at the Tea Research Institute of Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences(TRIYAAS) were measured.The results showed that the content of GA ranged from 0.210 % to 1.902 %,with an average of 0.834 %,explaining relatively low GA content among tea germplasms;the content of C ranged from 0.069 % to 8.865 %,with an average of 1.916 %;the content of EC ranged from 0.126 % to 2.865 %,with an average of 1.112 %;the content of EGC ranged from 0.00 to 3.709 %,with an average of 0.954 %;the content of ECG ranged from 0.739 % to 8.957 %,with an average of 4.063 %;the content of EGCG ranged from 0.819 % to 11.77 %,with an average of 5.939 %;and the content of total C ranged from 6.354 % to 22.654 %,with an average of 14.042 %.There was relatively big difference of catechin contents among different tea resources,indicating that there was plentiful biodiversity of Yunnan tea germplasms.At the same time,three tea germplasms with high epigallocatechin gallate content(≥10 %) was selected preliminarily,which would provide important materials for breeding tea cultivars with high EGCG content in the future.