Abstract:Hot water extraction technique was used for the preparation of four kinds of tea infusions and four tea water extracts were analyzed for their total phenolic content and catechins.Antioxidant activities were evaluated using three most common methods，i.e. DPPH radical scavenging assay，ferric reducing antioxidant power（FRAP）and 2，2-azino-bis （3-ethyl-benzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid）diammonium salt（ABTS）cation radical scavenging assay. Meanwhile，the antioxidant capacity between tea polyphenol and VC was also evaluated. Results showed that four tea water extracts had strong antioxidant activity. Green tea，jasmine tea，and oolong tea had higher values on DPPH and FRAP assays than black tea.Black tea exhibited slightly higher ABTS cation radical scavenging activity than the other three teas. Correlation analysis showed that there was a significant positive correlation between the levels of total catechins，total phenolic content，gallocatechin（GC），epigallocatechin（EGC），epigallocatechin gallate（EGCG），epicatechin gallate（ECG）and antioxidant activities measured using the DPPH and FRAP assays，however a negative correlation using ABTS assay.In addition，our result showed that tea polyphenols had stronger antioxidant potential than VC.