| Popis: |
Camellia sinensis or locally called the tea plant is one of the important food crops in Malaysia besides other popular crops such as coffee and cocoa. Since the earliest generations, tea has become one of the most popular beverages consumed globally. The tea drinks popularity has been inherited by current generations together with traditional knowledge of its benefits to human health. Recently, many types of tea products available in local markets. In order to achieve the expected quality, the quality assurance of the products must be in place. In this study, analysis method for detection and determination of the selected major chemical markers which include catechin, epicatechin, caffeine, theanine and theaflavin has been developed via High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Evaluation of the tea products in the local market showed variability in the level of chemical markers content. The content of catechin, epicatechin, caffeine, theaflavin and theanine varies from 2.7-14.9, 2.7 - 30.3, 3.2 - 43.6, 0.28 -15.5, 29.1-57.7 mg/g, respectively. Quality assurance monitoring based on chemical markers is crucial in order to produce high-quality tea-based products. The main advantage of this developed method is all the targeted constituents could be detected within a single running experiment. These could speed up analysis work and increase productivity. Consequently, the scientific study data was also found to agree with the traditional claims. The previous study demonstrated that tea leaves are rich with antioxidant properties especially catechin which is reported to possess the powerful antioxidant capability, besides epicatechin, caffeine, theanine and theaflavin. |
