Abstract
The prices of domestic green tea products are relatively expensive and price differences within products of the same levels of quality are various. Also, there is no basic criteria on evaluation of green tea quality. To group 43 commercial green tea products into several parts by the principal component and cluster analyses, this work was done by use of 8 chemical constituents which were analyzed by NIR system. The principal component and cluster analyses revealed 8 groups. The first group included 16 products that had lower free amino acid and theanine contents. The second group included 5 products having higher free amino acid and theanine contents, but lower ash contents. The third group included 13 products showing medium values of 8 constituents. The IV group included 4 products having higher contents of moisture, free amino acids, and theanine. The V group included 1 product showing higher moisture but lower catechins contents. The VI group included 2 products that had higher moisture and catechins contents, but lower free amino acid and theanine contents. The VII group had higher moisture and catechins contents. The VIII group had higher ash and vitamin C contents. The free amino acid contents which were the most important in flavor evaluation of green tea quality did highly positively correlate with the contents of total nitrogen $(0.956^{**}),\;theanine\;(0.981^{**}),\;and\;caffeine\;(0.793^{**})$, but negatively with the contents of ash $(-0.884^{**})$. The catechins used as for functional ingredients did correlate with contents of caffeine(+) and vitamin C(-), respectively.