Abstract
There are many varieties of tea (Camellia sinensis) obtained by different processing methods. In Japan, sencha tea has been used to brew beverages for centuries, and tencha leaves are used to make powdered green tea, matcha, which is used as an important food additive to impart the odor of green tea. We investigated the differences between the odors of sencha and tencha and their aroma profiles. We used our new technique to evaluate the odor of green tea, based on the theory that the aroma characteristics of materials arise from the interactions of groups of compounds with similar structures. Hexane extracts from sencha and tencha leaves were analyzed by gas chromatography-olfactometry. We detected several important compounds for tencha. The hexane extracts were separated by distillation, and groups of compounds with different boiling points were obtained. We investigated the group of high-boiling point constituents, which had a matcha-like odor and consisted of a group of odor constituents common to sencha and tencha. Tencha had a characteristic seaweed-like odor, and the low-boiling point constituents caused the differences in the tencha and sencha odors.