This study was aimed at investigating the natural occurrence of caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline in tea leaves. Sample clean-up was based on a simple solid phase extraction (SPE) treatment, and simultaneous analysis was performed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). This method showed good results in terms of linearity, recovery, precision, limit of detection (LOD), and limit of quantitation (LOQ). The caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline contents of tea leaves (n = 228) ranged from 5.4 to 58.2 mg/g, from not detected to 11.2 mg/g, and from not detected to 0.7 mg/g, respectively. The results obtained in this study can be used as fundamental data of caffeine, theobromine, and theophylline contents in tea leaves.
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