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Write 5 pages with APA style on Levels of Caffeine in Tea, Coffee and Soft Drinks

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Write 5 pages with APA style on Levels of Caffeine in Tea, Coffee and Soft Drinks. Several beverages like coffee from the seeds of the Coffea arabica plant, Colas from Kola nuts, tea made from the leaves of Thea/Camellia Sinensis contain varying amounts of caffeine content. Caffeine is also added back to other products as a food additive. In the USA, caffeine use and labeling are regulated by the Federal Food and Drug Administration. Naturally present caffeine in various ingredients is not required to be listed on the label. The decaffeination process of coffee and tea effectively removes about 97% of the caffeine. Caffeine levels should not be more than 2.5 percent of the product, to classify it as decaffeinated (Rafetto et al, 2005).

The caffeine content in food and beverages can be estimated by numerous methods. Few of these techniques comprise of the indispensable UV-Visible spectrophotometry, simple to use thin layer chromatography, more complex high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC), capillary (Spiller, 1998). HPLC is one of the most commonly used estimation methods. HPLC as a method to estimate caffeine content in beverages is described below.

A calibration curve is made by using solutions of caffeine ranging from 5-1000 ppm. Samples are passed through syringe before loading onto the column. to get rid of any particulate matter. 60 μl of the filtered sample is injected into the HPLC at a volumetric flow rate of 2ml/min. The elution solvent system consists of 65:35 mixture of water and methanol, and the total run time is 5 min. Approximate elution time for Caffeine is 0.9 minutes and peak area vs. concentration plot is constructed. Preparation for test samples depends upon the type of beverage. Carbonated soft drinks require a degassing step before filtration (Yuhas, 2002). The beverages are analyzed in the same way as standards.