Abstract:High-performance liquid chromatography （HPLC）and ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry were used to reveal the change rules of chemical compositions in the storage and aging of Pu-erh tea.In particular，chemical components including catechins，flavonoids，gallic acid，purine alkaloids，soluble sugars，and free amino acids in two series of Pu-erh raw teas with a storage time of 0 to 10 years were determined.Moreover，principal component analysis（PCA），hierarchical cluster analysis（HCA），and one-way analysis of variance（one-way ANOVA）were conducted to explore the change rules during storage and aging of Pu-erh tea.According to the results，tea polyphenols，free amino acids and ester catechins，including epicatechin gallate（ECG），gallocatechin gallate（GCG），and epigallocatechin gallate（EGCG）decreased significantly（P<0.01），while myricetin and gallic acid content increased significantly （P<0.01）during storage and aging.In addition，the non-ester catechins，such as gallocatechin （GC），epicatechin （EC），and epigallocatechin（EGC）exhibited a trend of initially increasing before decreasing，while purine alkaloids （caffeine and theobromine）and quercetin had no significant （P<0.05）variations.PCA and HCA could divide these Pu-erh raw teas into threegroups：newtea（0-2years），chentea（3-7years）andoldtea（8yearsandabove）.Amongthethreegroups of tea with different storage times，there were obvious differences in tea polyphenols，free amino acids，six catechins，two flavonoids（kaempferol and myricetin）and gallic acid.