Simultaneous determination of theobromine, theophylline and caffeine in teas by high performance liquid chromatography

Abstract

To carry out this study, 10 samples of different kinds and brands of teas were analyzed with the purpose of quantifying simultaneously theobromine, theophylline and caffeine. For this, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used based on ISO 10095 (1992). The conditions were: a reversed phase column (Inertisil ODS-3, 150x4 mm, 5 mm); acetic acid 1% + acetonitrile (95:5, v/v) as mobile phase; flow of 1 ml/min and UV-VIS detector set at 273 nm. The results of caffeine obtained by this method were compared with those using a spectrophotometric method according to Schormüller (1970). In the case of black tea, no difference was observed in the caffeine, by both methods. The samples of black tea had the highest amounts of theobromine and caffeine and no sample had a significant amount of theophylline.