Simple Methods of Judging the Qualities of Black Tea for Individual Selection Work in Tea Plant Breeding (Part 2)

Abstract

In this investigations, the Raikai tea manufacturing (tea leaves were ground and kneaded in Raikai-machine) with withered leaves and unwithered ones was made, using Assam varieties, Chinese varieties and Assam hybrids, and some positive correlations were obtained between the fermentation abilities in the tea manufacturing and the qualities of black tea.The correlation coefficients of the fermentation abilities in the Raikai tea manufacturing using both the withered leaves and the unwithered ones to the qualities of black tea were found to be high (r=0.687 and 0.666, respectively), particularly each correlation coefficient to the colour of infused tea was very high (r=0.801 and 0.771, respectively).Correlations between the fermentation abilities in the Raikai tea manufacturing and the aroma of black tea seemed to be higher in the case of using withered leaves than unwithered ones.Concerning both the fermentation abilities and the qualities of black tea, very high correlations (r=0.911 and 0.794, respectively) were also observed between withered leaves and unwithered ones, And then, it was found that at least 10-20 grams of green leaves were needed to judge the qualities of black tea from the fermentation abilities.No significant difference was observed among Assam varieties, Chinese varieties and Assam hybrids.From the above results, it was concluded that the fermentation abilities in the, Raikai tea manufacturing using 10-20 grams of unwithered leaves was very useful to us as a simple method of judging the qualities of black tea for the first and second individual selection works in tea plant breeding.