Comparative Analysis of Major Characteristic Components of Tea Seed Oils (Camellia oleifera Abel. ) from Different Geographic Regions

In order to compare the differences among tea seed oils from different geographic regions, we applied systematic cluster analysis (SCA) and principal component analysis (PCA) to analyze the oil content, fatty acid composition, and characteristic components including sterol, squalene and tocopherol of tea seeds from eight different producing regions. The results showed that oil contents of the tea seeds ranged from 41.38% to 54.71%. A total of 12 fatty acids, squalene, 8 sterols and tocopherols were detected in the eight tea seed oils. The oil from Jiujiang, Jiangxi province contained the highest content of saturated fatty acids (133.79 mg/g), the oil from Suizhou, Hubei province contained the highest content of unsaturated fatty acid (659.40 mg/g), the oil from Quzhou, Zhejiang province contained the highest content of total sterol(316.14 mg/100 g), and the oil from Shaoyang, Hunan province was the richest in total tocopherol (338.74 mg/kg) and squalene (29.27 mg/100 g). The results of SCA and PCA indicated that the eight producing regions were clustered into four groups: Group 1 including Quzhou of Zhejiang province, Southeast Guizhou Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou province, Jinzhai of Anhui province, Suizhou of Hubei province and Heyang of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region; Group 2 including Shaoyang of Zhejiang province; Group 3 including Jiujiang of Jiangxi province; and Group 4 including Kunming. Moreover, PCA analysis showed high scores for tea seed oils from Shaoyang of Hunan province, Suizhou of Hubei province and Jiujiang of Jiangxi province. In summary, there were significant differences (P < 0.05) in the characteristic components of the tea seed oils from different producing regions and the oil from Shaoyang contained high contents of the characteristic components and ranked the highest overall. © 2020, China Food Publishing Company. All right reserved.