An integrated chemometric workflow for botanical origin discrimination and electronic tongue profiling of processing-related taste variation in Coptidis Rhizoma

The quality evaluation of Coptidis Rhizoma (CR) is analytically challenging because of its multiple botanical origins and processed forms. This study developed a chemometric analytical workflow for botanical origin discrimination and processing-related taste profiling of CR by integrating infrared spectroscopy, UPLC-Q-TOF-MS/MS fingerprinting, and electronic tongue (E-tongue) analysis. For origin discrimination, FT-IR and NIR spectroscopy were systematically compared using different preprocessing, variable-selection, and supervised classification strategies. NIR models based on second-derivative preprocessing combined with VIP or CARS variable selection achieved 100% classification accuracy for discriminating C. chinensis , C. deltoidea , and C. teeta . UPLC-Q-TOF-MS/MS fingerprinting coupled with CP-ANN modeling identified six alkaloids as origin-related markers, with C. chinensis showing relatively higher levels of most quantified alkaloids. For processed products prepared from C. chinensis (WL), E-tongue analysis clearly differentiated raw and processed samples and identified umami (NMS), saltiness (CTS), and general taste (PKS) as key sensory dimensions. Relative sensor-response analysis further showed that processing induced differential changes across taste-related sensor dimensions, with the bitterness-related sensor showing the smallest relative increase among all sensors, while wine-processed CR exhibited the most pronounced overall sensory shift. Overall, this workflow provides a practical and reproducible analytical strategy for herbal materials with botanical-origin and processing-dependent quality variability.