Abstract
Green, black and white teas are all produced from leaves and shoots of Camellia sinensis, the only difference is how they are processed. The aim of this study was to compare the total phenols and flavonoid contents and antioxidant capacity of green, black and white tea bags of different brands. The morphodiagnosis of leaves was used to identification of plant material. HPLC-DAD fingerprinting coupled with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied to analyze similarities of the tea samples. The results showed considerable variability between tea brands in both total phenols (30.55 to 60.85 mg of pyrogallol/g) and flavonoids (6.35 to 8.92 mg of quercetin/g). Green and white teas demonstrated the highest ABTS and DPPH radical scavenging activities.
Highlights
Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze is a very branched tree belonging to the Theaceae family (Duarte & Menarim, 2006)
The UV spectra of some chromatographic bands presented in the fingerprinting of the samples obtained from HPLCDAD analysis (Figure 1) indicated the presence of phenolic compounds
Zeraik & Yariwake (2010) report that the UV spectra of the chromatographic bands allows the selection of interested peaks for qualitative and quantitative analysis
Summary
Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze is a very branched tree belonging to the Theaceae family (Duarte & Menarim, 2006). It is originated in China, Tibet and Northern India, today is widely cultivated throughout the world. In Brazil, the tea plant has been cultivated in the Ribeira Valley, State of São Paulo (Lima et al, 2009). The leaves and shoots are utilized in the production of different types of tea, available to consumers as tea bag, ready-to-drink tea, flavoured tea, and organic tea. The tea plant is often packaged in individual bags which contain approximately 1 g of plant material. The types of tea produced from Camellia sinensis (white, green and black) differ in the processing of the plant material (Coggon et al, 1973). While black tea undergo a fermentation stage before drying, green tea consists in leaves heated immediately after harvesting, mechanically wound and compressed, and the leaves are dry to ensure the preservation of color and natural constituents (Cabrera et al, 2003; Hilal & Engelhardt, 2007)
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