Quality control of commercial samples of white, green and red tea marketed in Bahía Blanca city (Prov. Bs. As., Arg.)

SOTO, T.; VEROLO, M.; DE PALMA, N.; PÉREZ CUADRA, V.

Córdoba

Otro; 3° Reunión Internacional de Ciencias Famaceúticas (RICIFA 2014); 2014

A great amount of teas are commercializedaround the world, but only young leaves and stems of Camellia sinensis are used to manufacturing tea sensu stricto, which is the favorite infusion for many people around the world. The aim of this study was to analyze commercial samples of white, green and red tea sells in Bahia Blanca city, determining its quality in direct relation to the amount of trichomes presented in these samples. One commercial sample of white tea, three of red one and four ofgreen tea, corresponding to five trademarks were analyzed. Fromeach package of 20-25 teabags, were analyzed four randomly chosen. The material was dissociated and drained subsamples of 0.1 g were mounted and studied under light microscopy following a greek guard design. All samples correspond to Camellia sinensis, although most of them are contaminated with tissues of other plants and animal species. The only studied brand of white tea showed about 300 hairs per subsample. For green tea, three brands had near 200 trichomes per subsample while in the remaining more than 700 were counted. A brand of red tea averaged 100 hairs per subsample, another one 350 and two had highest values, reaching to 1100 trichomes. The quality of raw material with which this type of mass-market teas are produced is notoriously uneven, which contrasts with their high prices due to the current popularity of the antioxidant properties that they own.