Effects of Different Maturity and Initial Processing Methods on the Content of Four Kinds of Active Ingredients in Gardenia

To research the effects of the initial processing methods of gardenias from different producing areas on the contents of four active ingredients in the samples: Genipoic acid, chlorogenic acid, geniposide and crocin I. The separation was performed on the Agilent ZORBAX SB-C₁₈ (5 µm, 4.6 mm×250 mm) column with gradient elution. The mobile phase was 0.1% phosphoric acid water solution and acetonitrile, and the flow rate was set as 1.0 mL/min. The column temperature was kept at 30 ℃. Detection wavelength: Geniposideacid and geniposidewas set at 238 nm, chlorogenic acidwas set at 328 nm, crocetin I was set at 440 nm.The 40% methanol ultrasonic extraction was used 400 times. The four active components could be effectively extracted within 40 minutes.Gardenias were harvested best when they were medium maturity and mature, the gardenia must be quenched before drying. The effects of 120 s steaming and 30 s boiling were equivalent and the best; among different drying methods, 50 ℃ hot air drying had the best effect. The content of active components in the fixation dried samples was higher than that in the not fixation dried samples. The contents of genipoic acid, chlorogenic acid, and crocin I in the different treatment samples stored at room temperature for one year did not change significantly (P>0.05). The glycoside content was significantly reduced (P<0.05).This method uses the contents of four active components of geniposideacid, chlorogenic acid, geniposide and crocin I as indicators to evaluate the quality of gardenia, which provides a theoretical basis for the harvest, processing and storage of gardenia.