Abstract: The present paper describes an investigation into the extraction of tea seed oil by microwave pretreatment followed by aqueous enzymatic extraction. Tea seeds were pulverized to 60 mesh and added to a 6-fold volume of deionized water before microwave treatment for 10 min at a power level of 800 W. Thereafter cellulase, pectinase and acid protease were added at respective doses of 1.5%, 2.0% and 0.25% for hydrolysis at pH 4.5 and 45 ℃ for 6 h. Finally centrifugation and extraction were sequentially conducted to obtain tea seed oil. Microwave pretreatment could promote the aqueous enzymatic extraction of tea seed oil, resulting in an extraction yield of 27.9%.

Key words: microwave pretreatment, aqueous enzymatic method, extraction, tea seed oil