Advances and Outlook of Tea Polyphenol Chemistry: A Review

Tea is one of the most widely consumed beverages globally, whereas tea polyphenols are always receiving the most attention in scientific research. In past decades, the polyphenols, their derivatives, and oligomers and polymers which possess potential antioxidant, anticancer, and hypolipidemic effects were separated and identified. However, after reviewing previous study in tea polyphenols, it was found that some thorny problems have been left unsolved although a series of conventional methods, such as chromatography, mass spectrometry, and nuclear magnetic resonance, have already been widely applied; meanwhile, a variety of novel analytical methods and theories are booming. Here, we summarized the progress of tea polyphenol chemistry during recent decades and made an outlook based on the emerging new methods and technologies.