Rapid Sensing of Key Quality Components in Black Tea Fermentation Using Electrical Characteristics Coupled to Variables Selection Algorithms

Based on the electrical characteristic detection technology, the quantitative prediction models of sensory score and physical and chemical quality Index (theaflavins, thearubigins, and theabrownins) were established by using the fermented products of Congou black tea as the research object. The variation law of electrical parameters during the process of fermentation and the effects of different standardized pretreatment methods and variable optimization methods on the models were discussed. The results showed that the electrical parameters vary regularly with the test frequency and fermentation time, and the substances that hinder the charge transfer increase gradually during the fermentation process. The Zero-mean normalization (Zscore) preprocessing method had the best noise reduction effect, and the prediction set correlation coefficient (Rp) value of the original data could be increased from 0.172 to 0.842. The mixed variable optimization method (MCUVE-CARS) of Monte Carlo uninformed variable elimination (MC UVE) and competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS) was proved that the characteristic electrical parameters were the loss factor (D) and reactance (X) of the low range. Based on the characteristic variables screened by MCUVE-CARS, the quantitative prediction models for each fermentation quality indicator were established. The Rp values of the sensory score, theaflavin, thearubigin and theabrownins of the predicted models were 0.924, 0.811, 0.85 and 0.938 respectively. The relative percent deviation (RPD) values of the sensory score, theaflavins, thearubigins and theabrownins of the predicted models were 2.593, 1.517, 1,851 and 2.920 respectively, and it showed that these models have good performance and could realize quantitative characterization of key fermentation quality indexes.