Study of white tea nutraceutical properties

Tea is a widely consumed beverage in the world and its consumption is highly recommended due to the great number of healthy properties. Tea can be classified in white, green, oolong, and black according to the different processing method. White tea, a rare variety, is little fermented, only made by new growth buds and young leaves, and after picking is immediately dried to maintain its delicate and sweet taste. Recently, many health benefits including anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, anti-melanogenic properties, an effect on prediabetesinduced reproductive dysfunction and on the stabilization of collagen in dentine resulting in functional remineralization have been attributed to white tea. Due to these functional properties, it could be interesting define the nutraceutical properties of white tea consisting of only sprouting buds or sprouting buds with the first three leaves grown according to minimum processing system. The aim of the present research is to investigate samples, commercially available in Europe, coming from four countries: China (Camellia sinensis var. sinensis), India, Sri Lanka, and Malawi (Camellia sinensis var. assamica), for the chemical composition and minerals profile of the different white tea infusions (consisted both of only buds or of buds plus young leaves). The chemical composition has been defined by LC-ESI-MSn and mono and two dimentional High Resolution NMR spectroscopy; furthermore, a quantitative profile of the main components has been investigated by a RP-HPLC-DAD method and tentatively by quantitative NMR using ERETIC 2 method. For each sample, macro and trace elements were determined using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), and ICP-mass spectrometry (MS). For the first time, a differentiation of nutraceutical properties between white tea buds and buds plus young leaves from different countries will be defined.