Abstract: A microcolumn high performance liquid chromatography method for the determination of tea polyphenols wasstudied. Tea polyphenols was extracted from the tea leaf with 80% of ethanol by ultrasonic extraction at 50℃, then purified bysolid phase extraction with Sep-Pak-C18 cartridge. The tea polyphenols can be separated on a Waters XterraTM RP18 (1.0×50mm,2.5μm) microcolumn, with methanol and 1% acetic acid solution gradient elution as mobile phase at a flow-rate of 0.2ml/min, andmonitored with photodiode array detector at 200～400nm. The recovery of tea polyphenols is 95%～103%, and relative standarddeviation is 1.22%～1.6%. This method can be applied to the determination of tea polyphenols in tea with good result.

Key words: high performance liquid chromatography, tea polyphenols, tea leaf