Abstract
Tea is a popular beverage almost all over the world. Many studies show that tea consumption is closely associated with positive health impact. Most of the HPLC methods used for the determination of tea constituents include gradient elution systems which involve expensive instrumentation. The objective of this study was to develop a simple, rapid precise and low cost HPLC method for the separation and quantification of catechins and caffeine in tea (Camellia sinensis). The method utilizes a phenyl column (2.1 × 150 mm) with a UV-detector (280 nm) where excellent chromatographic separation of tea components i.e. gallic acid (GA), caffeine (Caf), epicatechin (EC) and (−)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) was achieved. The isocratic elution system of acetonitrile, glacial acetic acid and deionized water (8:1:91 v/v/v) at a flow rate of 0.5 mL/min was involved. This method produced excellent accuracy and precision. Within run and between run precision was less than 7.5 %. The equations for calibration curves were y = 0.117 (±0.010)x + 0.173 (±0.024), y = 0.100 (±0.003)x + 0.045 (±0.019), y = 0.016 (±0.001)x + 0.006 (±0.004), y = 0.025 (±0.001)x−0.025 (±0.007) for GA, Caf, EC and EGCG respectively. The method validation parameters prove that the method is efficient, a simple and adequate for the quantitative determination of principal components in tea samples.
Highlights
Tea is a healthy beverage enjoyed by most population in the world
We developed a simple, rapid and accurate analytical method for quantification of gallic acid (GA), Caf, EC and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) in tea products using a low-cost HPLC method
The standard deviations of the slope and intercepts of these curves prove a good reproducibility for all substances tested. It suggests that the concentration used for β-hydroxyethyltheophylline as the internal standard for all the substances i.e. GA, Caf, EC and EGCG analysis is adequate
Summary
Tea is a healthy beverage enjoyed by most population in the world. The medicinal effects of tea include anticancer activity, anti-obesity, antidepressant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial etc. Tea is a complex mixture of phytochemicals. Catechins and caffeine have drawn more attention to study its health benefits. Catechins consist of flavon-3-ol structure and have been proved to be strong antioxidants and free radicals scavenging agents (He et al 2010). The biological activities of catechins vary depending on their structures. Polyphenolic substances like gallic acid have demonstrated cytotoxic activity in cancer cell lines (Fernando and Soysa 2015). The coexisting component with polyphenols has been found to
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