Different behavior in column chromatography between two types of kaki-shibu made from immature fruits of PCNA ‘Fuyu’ and PCA ‘Atago’

Kaki-shibu is a kind of fermented persimmon juice which contains high amounts of tannins. It is produced by squeezing young astringent persimmon fruits and by keeping it for a half to 3 years for fermentation. It is an important product and traditionally is used for dyes and paints in Japan. There are several special cultivars for producing kaki-shibu and all cultivars are astringent types. On the other hand, persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) is classified into 4 types by the differences in astringency loss related to seed formation, namely 1) pollination-constant and non-astringent (PCNA), 2) pollination-variant and non-astringent (PVNA), 3) pollination-constant and astringent (PCA), and 4) pollination-variant and astringent (PVA). Among these 4 types, fruits of PCNA type have a different chemical property in tannins compared with those of other 3 types. So, we have conducted to make kaki-shibu from young astringent fruits of PCNA ‘Fuyu’ and compared its behavior seasonally until 2 years in column chromatography with kaki-shibu made from young astringent fruits of PCA ‘Atago’. Column chromatography was carried out by Purif-Rp1 system equipped with a semi-preparative Purif-StarGel Sirius column (Shoko Science Co., Ltd.) and kaki-shibu was separated by gradient elution with aqueous ethanol. We applied kaki-shibu on the column and collected 40 fractions of 10 mL each per fraction. Tannins of each fraction was detected by measuring the total phenolics using Folin-Ciocalteu method. As the result, we have detected the different separation pattern of kaki-shibu made from ‘Fuyu’ compared with kaki-shibu of ‘Atago’. This indicates that kaki-shibu from ‘Fuyu’ has a different chemical property against kaki-shibu from ‘Atago’.