2023 Volume 2023 Issue 135 Pages 29-42
At the Kagoshima Prefecture Tea Market, the appearance (AP) and liquor color (LC) of teas being bid are photographed with a digital camera for the purpose of improving the tea quality, and the prices and numerical values obtained from texture and chromaticity analysis of the images are feedbacked to each farmer via smartphone. In this study, we report a practice of quality management in the local tea production using these Tea Market Smart-Information (TMS) . Principal component analysis using tea image analysis data made it possible to visualize the tea characteristics of producers in local area. The prices were greatly affected by the varieties and bidding dates, but were also affected by the color phase of LC and particle size of AP. Based on the control chart, the color phase values of LC tended to decrease when tea was manufactured during continuous rainfall periods. In addition, the annual variation in color phase of LC was affected by weather factors such as humidity, minimum temperature, and amount of solar radiation, although it largely depended on the varieties and tea factories. The newly introduced covering material to improve the LC was found to increase chlorophyll content and reduce wind damage of tea shoot. These data indicate the use of TMS greatly contributes to the visualization and quality control of the tea characteristics of producers.
