Chemical Compositions and Antioxidant Activity of Essential Oil from Green Tea Produced from Camellia taliensis (Theaceae) in Yuanjiang, Southwestern China*

Abstract

Camellia taliensis belonging to Camellia sect. Thea (Theaceae) is distributed from the western and southwestern areas of Yunnan Province, China to the north of Myanmar. Known as the "wild" tea plant, it has been commonly used for making tea by the local people of its growing area. It is the first investigation of the volatile constituents of the fresh tender leaves of C.taliensis and green teas produced from its tender and older leaves. The volatile constituents were obtained by hydrodistillation and analyzed by GC and GC-MS. Ninety-one compounds were identified. The results showed that the main compositions of volatile oil of the fresh tender leaves were hexadecanoic acid (30.52%), linoleic acid (19.82%), phytol (8.75%), and geraniol (2.54%), while monoterpenoids (58.51%) composing of linalool (28.43%), hotrienol (1.13%), α-terpineol (11.68%), nerol (4.92%) and geraniol (12.34%) were the major volatile components of its green tea product. From the fresh leaves to the green tea products, 28 aroma components were formed. Among then, the content of (Z, Z, Z)-9, 12, 15-octadecatrien-1-ol (peak 77) was up to 1.21% (from tender leaves) and 11.2% (from older leaves), respectively. The DPPH and ABTS+ radical scavenging assays demonstrated a moderate activity of essential oil from the three essential oils of C.taliensis.