Morphological Analysis Of Five Types Of Insect Tea And Research On The Stability Of Main Components Of Sanye Insect Tea

Insect tea is a characteristic product of minority areas in China, which is made of the excretion that Lepidoptera larvae excrete after eating some particular plants. In order to control the quality of insect tea better, the similarities and differences of morphology of insect tea from five provinces in China, the efficacy stability of Sanye insect tea and comparison of active ingredient content between Malus Sieboldii R and Sanye insect tea were studied. The main results are as follows.(1)Using morphological analysis, the length of major and minor axis, the internal and external color and the external texture of insect tea particle, the tea nature and so on were compared among different insect teas from five provinces which are Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hunan and Guangxi. The following conclusions were drawn from analysis of sampling result.The size of insect tea particle from each province becomes larger with growth of instar. The basic shape of insect tea particle from Guangxi province is short cylindrical, while the others from the rest provinces are long cylindrical. Insect tea particle from Guangxi provinces has smooth surface without significant main texture, and the others have rough with significant texture by which the particle was divided into 2 to 4 parts. Shade Order of insect tea particle from dark to light is:from Guangxi> from Hunan> from Sichuan> from Guizhou> from Yunnan. This study provides scientific basis to identify the types of insect tea from apparent shape, promote the standardized development of insect tea industry, and plays a leading role in quality identification of insect tea in China.(2) To feed Aglossa dimidiate Haworth larvae on Malus Sieboldii R of different parts, different processing method and different years respectively, and collect Sanye insect tea. Then to test the four main efficacy components which are teaupolyphenol, amino acid, mineral calcium and iron. By data analysis it was found that, the contents of the 4 components in Sanye insect tea are relatively stable, that is, the treatment that feeding larvae on the Malus Sieboldii R leaves with different treatments makes the 4 effective components maintained certain content. In addition, the study proposed the production method which can make Sanye insect tea achieved the best nutritional value. It suggests that to mainly choose the younger leaves when picking Malus Sieboldii R with an appropriate mix of older; the leaves picked can be directly fed the Aglossa dimidiate Haworth larvae during the large-scale production, while the leaves can be boil in boiling water following the local custom and then be fed the larvae on when producing for farmers at home. Length of the storage time of Malus Sieboldii R after picked has no effect on content of the main effective components.(3) On the basis of the foregoing research, the content of the 4 active ingredients between Sanye insect tea and Malus Sieboldii R were compared sequentially. The result shows that the content of Malus Sieboldii R was higher than those of Sanye insect tea, but the advantage is not obvious. It suggested that, in the excretion that Aglossa dimidiate Haworth larvae excrete after eating Malus Sieboldii R, the content of the 4 active ingredients has close relationship with the content of the same ingredients in the food that the larvae eat, which provids important scientific basis for maintaining the stability of the related content of active ingredients in Sanye insect tea, that is, Content of ingredients in food determine to a great degree the content of ingredients in excretion.