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Abstract

L-theanine involves a great number of health benefits and dietary supplements containing this molecule are becoming increasingly popular. There is, therefore, a growing need to find ways to discriminate between natural L-theanine extracted from tea leaves and the cheaper, synthetic one obtained using specific bacterial enzymes. A first attempt of stable isotope ratio analysis characterization of the possible synthetic adulterant L-theanine (δ13C of -14.3±1.5‰), obtained from vegetable substrates with C4 photosynthetic cycle, and of the more expensive natural L-theanine (δ13C of -24.4±1.3‰), extracted from Camellia sinensis plants with C3 photosynthetic cycle, is reported here .

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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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