Establishment and analysis of the HPLC fingerprint for Yingde black tea NO.9 produced in different seasons

High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to measure large tea cultivate Yingde black tea NO.9 produced in spring, summer and autumn; the relative retention time, relative peak area and common peaks were analyzed according to the HPLC chromatogram. The results showed that HPLC method had high precision; and the relative retention time of chromatographic peak of each sample was stable, which could be used as the relative time of fingerprint; and seven common peaks were confirmed. with the application of the peak area of each chromatographic peak as a factor, digitized HPLC fingerprint of the Yingde black tea NO.9 was established by the correlation coefficient and cluster analysis method. In this research scope this method was feasible in discrimination of the Yingde black tea NO.9 produced in different seasons and the difference between Yingde black tea NO.9 and other black teavarieties.