Thearubigins are

polymer A polymer () is a chemical substance, substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeat unit, repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their br ...

polyphenol Polyphenols () are a large family of naturally occurring phenols. They are abundant in plants and structurally diverse. Polyphenols include phenolic acids, flavonoids, tannic acid, and ellagitannin, some of which have been used historically as ...

s that are formed during the

enzymatic oxidation Browning is the process of food turning brown due to the chemical reactions that take place within. The process of browning is one of the chemical reactions that take place in food chemistry and represents an interesting research topic regarding ...

and condensation of two gallocatechins (

epigallocatechin Gallocatechol or gallocatechin (GC) is a flavan-3-ol, a type of chemical compound including catechin, with the gallate residue being in an isomeric ''trans'' position. This compound possesses two epimers. The most common, (+)-gallocatechin (GC), ...

and

epigallocatechin gallate Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), also known as epigallocatechin-3-gallate, is the ester of epigallocatechin and gallic acid, and is a type of catechin. EGCG – the most abundant catechin in tea – is a polyphenol under basic research for it ...

) with the participation of

polyphenol oxidase Polyphenol oxidase (PPO; also polyphenol oxidase i, chloroplastic), an enzyme involved in fruit browning, is a tetramer that contains four atoms of copper per molecule. PPO may accept monophenols and/or ''o''-diphenols as substrates. The ...

s during the

fermentation Fermentation is a type of anaerobic metabolism which harnesses the redox potential of the reactants to make adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and organic end products. Organic molecules, such as glucose or other sugars, are catabolized and reduce ...

reactions in

black tea Black tea (also literally translated as red tea from various East Asian languages) is a type of tea that is more tea processing, oxidized than oolong, yellow tea, yellow, white tea, white, and green tea, green teas. Black tea is generally st ...

. Thearubigins are red in colour and are responsible for much of the

stain A stain is a discoloration that can be clearly distinguished from the surface, material, or medium it is found upon. They are caused by the chemical or physical interaction of two dissimilar materials. Accidental staining may make materials app ...

ing effect of tea. Therefore, a black (fully oxidized) tea often appears red while a green or white tea has a much clearer appearance. The colour of a black tea, however, is affected by many other factors as well, such as the amount of

theaflavin Theaflavin (TF) and its derivatives, known collectively as ''theaflavins'', are antioxidant polyphenols in tea, polyphenols that are formed from the condensation of flavan-3-ols in tea leaves during the enzymatic oxidation (sometimes erroneously re ...

s, another oxidized form of polyphenols. Thearubigins were first studied by Roberts, E. A. H. in the 1960s by the means of

spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets electromagnetic spectra. In narrower contexts, spectroscopy is the precise study of color as generalized from visible light to all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. Spectro ...

or by

fractionation Fractionation is a separation process in which a certain quantity of a mixture (of gasses, solids, liquids, enzymes, or isotopes, or a suspension) is divided during a phase transition, into a number of smaller quantities (fractions) in which t ...

paper chromatography Paper chromatography is an analytical method used to separate colored chemicals or substances. It can also be used for colorless chemicals that can be located by a stain or other visualisation method after separation. It is now primarily used as ...

. They have been identified as

proanthocyanidin Proanthocyanidins are a class of polyphenols found in many plants, such as cranberry, blueberry, and grape seeds. Chemically, they are oligomeric flavonoids. Many are oligomers of catechin and epicatechin and their gallic acid esters. More complex ...

s in 1969. The thearubigins formation has been studied in an in vitro model in 1983. Thearubigins from black tea extracts have been studied by degradation in 1996. Quantification methods were based on Porter's assay in 1995 and separation made on C18 sorbent cartridges in 1992. Some new structures like theacitrin have been proposed in 1997 or in 2003 ( theasinensins A and B). Further studies made use of MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry in 2004 and other techniques in 2010. It has been shown in 2009 that thearubigins formation in black tea is correlated with

catechins Flavan-3-ols (sometimes referred to as flavanols) are a subgroup of flavonoids. They are derivatives of flavans that possess a 2-phenyl-3,4-dihydro-2''H''-chromen-3-ol skeleton. Flavan-3-ols are structurally diverse and include a range of comp ...

depletion.

References

{{Thearubigin