My. Xie et al., SELENIUM CONTENTS OF TEA FROM DIFFERENT P ROVINCES OF THE PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA, Zeitschrift fur Lebensmittel-Untersuchung und -Forschung, 201(4), 1995, pp. 303-306
In the People's Republic of China there are wide regions where many pe
ople suffer from strong selenium deficiency. In order to elucidate the
possibilities to compensate this state of need by the national drink,
the selenium contents of 31 tea samples from nine provinces of the PR
China were determined by hydride generation atomic absorption spectro
metry (HG-AAS). The Se contents of the ten analyzed tea samples from o
ne region with soils containing high selenium amounts range from 83 ng
/g to 7530 ng/g, These results are in contrast to the Se contents of t
he remaining tea samples from other regions, which range from 28 to 57
3 ng/g. The extractible part of selenium in the tea drink ranges betwe
en 7% and 27% without significant difference among different tea sampl
es. The accuracy of Se determination was tested by using one tea stand
ard reference material. The daily consumption of one ''Se tea'' examin
ed in this study assures that people who suffer from a Se deficiency r
esume enough of it. Drinking normal quantities of this tea an intoxica
tion by Se is not to be expected.