Abstract: Fresh tea leaves of eight tea cultivars commonly used to make Matcha were used as materials to analyze their differences in sensory quality, physical and chemical composition and color of the processed Tencha. The main taste substances and the differences of taste characteristics of Tencha among different cultivars were clarified according to Pearson’s linear correlation analysis of the contents (ratio) of the main chemical components and its taste attribute score, together with the Dot（dose-over-threshold）value analysis of the taste contribution . The results show that Tencha of Longjing 43 had the best overall performance with green appearance, seaweed fragrance, umami taste of tea infusion, the highest contents of both free amino acids and theanine, the lowest phenol ammonia ratio, and high chlorophyll content. Yabukita and Kyomidori followed. Correlation analysis shows that the umami taste was positively correlated with the contents of free amino acids, caffeine, theanine, aspartic acid, asparagine and the ratio of ester catechins/non-ester catechins (P<0.05). Dot analysis shows that EGCG and GCG were the main contributors to astringency. Caffeine, EGCG and GCG were the main contributors to bitterness, and EGCG was the most important contributor to astringency and bitterness of the tea infusions. While single amino acids had low contributions to the umami taste of the tea infusions (Dot<1).

Key words: tencha, tea cultivars, sensory quality, chemical compositions