Studies on the Colored Components in Black Tea Infusion

Part I. Separation of the colored components in black tea infusion by chromatography on Sephadex LH-20

Abstract

By using Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography in aqueous acetone, the colored components in black tea infusion were separated into nine groups.
Among these groups the early eluted group (1-4) consisted of high polymerized colored substances. Group 5 consisted of thearubigins and the colored components in group 7-9 were theaflavins.
From the chromatograms of two different grade teas (black tea of high grade and low grade), it was observed that the chromatogram of the former had a well-defined thearubigin peak and theaflavin peaks and that of the latter had noticeably large peaks of high polymerized colored compounds (group 1-2) and theaflavin peaks were not recognized, definitely.