Characteristics of the Fresh and Processed Tea Leaves in First Crop Seasons from 2006 to 2010

Abstract

In 2010, tea shoots took the freezing damage on March 30 in Shizuoka prefecture. This damage decreased in the yield of fresh tea leaves produced from 14268 ha in the pref. It would be great damage once in 30 years. Besides, this damage brought about 4489 millions yen decrease. Thus, we compiled tea leaves data obtained from the past five years (2006 to 2010) in this short paper. The data included plucking date, characteristics of the fresh and processed tea leaves, as well as the levels of caffeine and catechins. In 2010, the plucking date of early cultivar 'Saemidori' was a few weeks late in comparison with the average year. The characteristics of the tea shoots were small and including terminal bud. Nevertheless, they relatively had many matured leaves. The level of caffeine in the processed leaves was same as that in the other years, but the level of catechins was higher (23.2 %) than those (13% to 19%) of leaves processed in the other years. This may be due to including many matured leaves in the tea shoots plucked. The plucking date of medium cultivar 'Yabukita' was a couple of week late, but the late cultivar 'Okumidori' was plucked as usual. For these two cultivars, significant difference was not found in the characteristics of fresh and processed tea leaves, as well as the levels of caffeine and catechins.