Abstract—Objective: To establish the determination of the total sugar, fat, starch, protein and caffeine of tea polyphenols. Method: Total sugar were measured using Anthrone Colorimetry, the fat and starch were determined with acid hydrolysis method, determination of protein by digestion and alkalization distillation, and HPLC was applied to determination of the caffeine(CAF). Separation was performed on C18 column (4.6 mm×250 mm’ 5 μm) with the mobile phase consisting of water – methanol (7:3). Flow rate of the mobile phase was set at 1.8 ml/ min and UV-detection at 280nm. The temperature of column was set at 40℃ and sample injection volume was 30μl. Result: The total sugar content reached to 26.93 mg/g-80.61 mg/g, fat content reached 8.8 mg/g to 14.36 mg/g, starch content reached 0.27 mg/g to 2 mg/g, protein content reached 47.64 mg/g to 89.83 mg/g, and the liner range of caffeine content varied from 2.7 mg/g to 22.5mg/g (r=0.997), average recovery was 96.78%, RSD=0.15%(n=5). Conclusion: Combined with Anthrone Colorimetry, acid hydrolysis method, digestion and alkalization distillation, it is effective in determination of components in tea polyphenols. Result indicated that HPLC is simple accurate, reliable and reproducible, so it can be used to identification and determination of the caffeine content in tea polyphenols. The chromatographic system is stable and applicable.

Index Terms—Tea polyphenols, total sugar, fat, starch, protein, caffeine, HPLC.

Mao Luo is with the Research Center for Drug Discovery, Luzhou Medical College, Luzhou 646000, China (e-mail: luomao20050908@ yahoo. cn).
Hua Peng is with the Sichuan Tourism University, Chengdu 610071, China (e-mail: 16828333@qq.com).

Cite: Mao Luo and Hua Peng, "Study on Determination of Contents of the Main Components of Tea Polyphenols," International Journal of Bioscience, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics vol. 2, no. 6, pp. 433-437, 2012.