No abstract

Summary The drying process is important for the quality and value of tea flower products. In the present work, the effects of different hot air drying (HAD) temperatures from 60 to 120 °C on drying kinetics, bioactive compounds (catechins, flavonol glycosides and triterpenoid saponins) and quality attributes (volatile compounds, colours and antioxidant properties) of tea flowers were systematically evaluated. The results showed that higher drying temperature resulted in a shorter drying time but with greater loss of bioactive compounds and quality attributes. Flowers subjected to HAD at 60 °C showed the highest bioactive contents and quality attributes of all HAD samples and the quality of HAD 60 °C samples were close to that of freeze‐dried samples. Taking account of the production efficiency and energy consumption, the tea flowers dried at 60 °C for 180 min was preferred. These findings provide a guide for the processing of tea flowers with the aim of improving the overall quality of the product.

Drying tea flowers into a high quality product is important to its commodity value. In the present work, a combination of microwave assisted drying and air drying (MAD-AD) were applied in fresh tea flowers processing and its effect on flavor quality, active nutraceutical compounds, and antioxidant capacities were studied. The results showed that compared to air drying (AD) and freeze drying (FD) tea flowers, the MAD-AD tea flowers had higher contents of active compounds such as catechins, flavonol glycosides, and triterpenoid saponins, and possessed high antioxidant activities. Moreover, this drying method improved tea flowers’ color appearance and preserved more flowery fragrance. This combined method could be of interest as an industrial method in tea flowers drying with the benefit of reduced processing time, more reserved active compounds and high quality of products.

The characteristics and regeneration-restore of protoplasts and its karyotype of an insect pathological fungus, Metarhizium anisopliae var. majus were studied. Among the protoplasts, 25.3% were without a nucleus, and 74.7% contained a nucleus. Among the nucleus protoplasts, 53.6% contained a single nucleus. The regeneration-restore of protoplasts was of three distinct shapes. Considering the frequency of regeneration and the growing speed of the colony, 0.7 mol/l glucose was the optimum as osmotic stabilizer of culture medium in the regeneration-restore of the protoplasts. The chromosomal DNA molecules of M. anisopliae var. majus have been separated into seven bands by pulsed-field gel electrophoreses. Using the Schizosaccharomyces pombe chromosomes as size standard, the size of chromosomal DNA was estimated to be 1.1-6.5 Mb and its karyotype exhibited polytypism among strains.