The Effects of Tea Moisture Absorption by the Fixing Time On the Sensual Flavor Characteristics of Scented Green Tea

Gardenia floral aroma was most detected in the scented green tea as scented per fixing time, followed by fresh and mild green leaf aroma, fruit aroma, delicate floral aroma, jasmine floral aroma, spicy and woody aroma, and sweet and light floral aroma. And those flavor characters made a strong positive correlation as more than 0.85 with the tea moisture absorbed during the fixing, so the larger the moisture absorption is during the fixing, the more increased those flavor characters became. In other words, the moisture in the tea during the fixing served as a factor to increase flavors. Off flavor was strongly affected by the fixing time; that is, 1-penten-3-ol and 1-penten-3-one, which are generated during the post-fermented process in the accumulated tea, were observed to be great as the fixing time became decreased, so the fermentation flavor was increased at the early stage, as a short fixing time, and 1-octen-3-ol which is a storage off-flavor and mold off-flavor was increased continually from 12 hours of the fixing time when the fixing time became increased although it was not detected in the shorter fixing time, 6 hours.