Abstract:
The indistinguishable appearance and processing of Wuyi Rock Tea prevent origin identification by visual traits, whereas terroir-driven variations in elemental composition generate geographically specific fingerprints. In this study, the contents of multiple elements in Wuyi rock tea from different producing regions were determined, and a discriminant model for origin identification was established using chemometric statistical methods.A total of 55 tea leaf samples were collected from three major producing regions of Wuyi rock tea. The mineral element contents were measured using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry(ICP-OES)and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry(ICP-MS). Principal component analysis(PCA)was performed on the data, successfully extracting five principal components with eigenvalues all greater than 1, and the cumulative variance contribution rate reached 71.560%. Additionally, two discriminant methods orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis(OPLS-DA)and Fisher linear discriminant analysis(FLDA)were employed for origin discrimination of Wuyi rock tea.The results showed that the OPLS-DA model had cumulative explanation ability parameters(
R2X = 0.652,
R2Y = 0.752)and a predictive ability parameter(
Q2 = 0.590), all exceeding 0.5. The FLDA model achieved correct discrimination rates of over 90.9% for both model-building samples and cross-validation. Both models accurately discriminated tea leaf samples from the three different producing regions.This study demonstrates that the mineral elemental fingerprints of Wuyi rock tea samples from different regions, combined with chemometric statistical methods, can effectively determine their origin, providing a theoretical basis for the geographical indication protection of Wuyi rock tea.