Simultaneous determination of eight catechins and four theaflavins in green, black and oolong tea using new HPLC–MS–MS method

• A simple, rapid and accurate analytical method was developed for polyphenols with HPLC–MS/MS.
• Good linear range, coefficient and recoveries were achieved.
• This method can be used to evaluate the quality of foods and the health effects of various teas.
• The concentration of tea polyphenols is not correlated with the quality of tea.

A simple, rapid and accurate analytical method was developed for the analysis of eight tea catechins and four theaflavins simultaneously in three types of tea (green, black and oolong tea), using ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple-quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC–MS–MS) in multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. This method using HPLC–MS–MS in positive mode was performed on a CAPCELL PAK C18 MGIII (2.0 mm × 100 mm, 3 μm) column (Shiseido) with the mobile phase consisting of 0.1% aqueous formic acid (A) and methanol (B) in gradient elution at a flow rate of 0.3 mL min−1, and the column temperature set at 30 °C. The optimized HPLC–MS–MS methodology is selective and specific, and was validated for eight catechins and four theaflavins widely reported in different teas. Satisfactory linearity was achieved in linear range (0.02–5 μg mL−1 for catechins and 0.02–20 μg mL−1 for theaflavins) and fine determination coefficient (r2 > 0.9935). The recoveries ranged from 65% to 115% with the RSD ranging from 2.4% to 6.7%. The methodology was used to evaluate the target polyphenols concentration in three types of tea samples.