Abstract: The content of the polyphenols in Yunnan Pu-erh tea was determined and its sensory score was also appraised for evaluating the relationship between polyphenols content and its quality. The experimental results were analyzed by multianalysis and the related equation of polyphenols content and quality of Pu-erh tea was established. The results showed that the content of tea polyphenols (TP), total catechins (TC), flavonoid (FL), theaflavins (TF) and thearubigins (TR) were reduced during the processing of pu-erh tea, but the content of theabromine (TB) was increased from 2.53% to 10.57%. The correlation equation for the content of TP, TC, FL, TF, TR and TB and the quality of Pu-erh tea is as follows: Y=93.8930-0.4047X1-0.0654X2 -5.4336X3-71.4532X4+1.2114X5+1.2761X6, R2=0.985. The grade for Pu-erh tea was closely related with the content of TP, TC, FL, TF, TR and TB. The correlation equation is as follows: Y=73.6346+3.4281X1-54.9145X2-4.5225X3+164.0906X4+ 7.2507X5+1.9839X6, R2=0.991. In certain range, the content of TP and TB is positive for the quality of pu-erh tea, the correlation coefficient is 0.8957 and 0.8570, respectively.

Key words: Pu-erh tea, polyphenols, quality