In recent years consumer consumption of herbal tea and coffee has been on the rise. This growth can be attributed to the many studies that tout the health benefits of herbal tea and coffee. Tea has been shown to prevent oxidation of LDL, or "bad" cholesterol, reduce blood clotting and protect against several cancers. Coffee’s benefits include including protecting against Parkinson's disease, type 2 diabetes and liver disease while also improving cognitive function and decrease the risk of depression. While the health benefits of coffee and tea are outstanding there are still potential risks associated with their consumption. These risk are associated with priority pollutants that have assimilated into the tea leafs or coffee beans during their growth. The pollutants include pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCP), and toxic metals (Pb, Hg, Cd, As, Cr, Se, Ba). This paper presents the priority pollutant analysis results for several commercially available herbal teas and coffees. The organic constitutes were determined using microwave extraction with gas chromatography- mass spectrometry (GC/MS) analysis, while the inorganic metals were determined by microwave digestion followed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometric analysis (ICP-MS). Correlations between pollutant concentration and country of origin will also be discussed as well as a surrogate calibration scheme for derivative PAH determination.

Determination of organic and inorganic priority pollutants in herbal teas and coffee

249th National Meeting (2015)

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