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Stable isotope signatures versus gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry to determine the geographical origin of Fujian Oolong tea (Camellia sinensis) samples

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Abstract

Identifying the geographical origin of tea has become imperative due to increased consumer awareness and turbulence in the tea market. In this study, the potential of stable isotope tracer technique and gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS) for the differentiation of Tieguanyin (TGY) and Dahongpao (DHP) oolong tea, as well as DHP samples from three smaller parcels, was explored and compared. Both the methods are based on stable isotope signatures and GC–IMS clearly differentiated the TGY and DHP oolong tea, then the k-NN model was cross validated with an accuracy of 95.2% and 97.8%, respectively. GC–IMS was sensitive enough to distinguish different DHP samples with an acceptable accuracy of 86.7%, whereas stable isotope signatures showed an ineffective separation. In addition, we identify putative markers specific for the different areas. Finally, we revealed a significant correlation between stable isotope ratio and volatile compounds, although the underlying mechanism is still unclear.

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Abbreviations

GC:

Gas chromatography

IMS:

Ion mobility spectrometry

PGI:

Protected geographical indication

EA–IRMS:

Element analyzer–isotope ratio mass spectrometry

VPDB:

Vienna Pee Dee Belemnite

EA:

Elemental analyzer

MS:

Mass spectrometer

VSMOW:

Vienna standard mean ocean water

MCC:

Multicapillary column

PCA:

Principal components analysis

OPLS-DA:

Orthogonal projection on latent structure-discriminant analysis

TGY:

Tieguanyin oolong tea

DHP:

Dahongpao oolong tea

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Key Research and Development Projects of Anhui Province (Grant No. 1804a07020107), Startup Foundation for Advanced Talents of Anhui Agricultural University (yj2016-16), Key Projects of State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization (2016ZR022). The author would like to thank postgraduate student Rui Zhang for k-NN analysis.

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Correspondence to Chuankui Song.

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Jin, J., Zhao, M., Zhang, N. et al. Stable isotope signatures versus gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry to determine the geographical origin of Fujian Oolong tea (Camellia sinensis) samples. Eur Food Res Technol 246, 955–964 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00217-020-03469-0

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