Determination of Stevioside in Plant Material and Fruit Teas

Stevioside, a diterpene glucoside from Stevia rebaudiana, belongs to the strongest natural sweeteners. Its potential widespread use requires an easy and accurate analytical method. A simple method for stevioside analysis based on the water extraction, hydrophobic chromatography (Sep-Pak C18cartridges) and HPLC using linear gradient of acetonitrile in water is described. The feasibility of this procedure was tested analyzing the stevioside level in Stevia leaves as well as in tea “Fruit tea with Stevia”. Stevioside content did not show statistically significant difference when a set of 20 tea bags randomly chosen from five boxes was determined (P<0.01). The mean value of stevioside content in fruit tea with Stevia was 8.14±2.71 mg/mL. The described method proved to be fast and friendly to the environment by minimization of organic solvent consumption.