The purpose of this study was to understand better the difference of biochemical contents between the conserve Korean wild tea trees and introduced tea cultivars that have been cultivated in the same field. The Korean wild tea germplasms were collected from Jeonnam province in 1998. The preparation method for the high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) analysis of the biochemical contents of tea trees was modified to rapid and labor-saving one. The caffeine and catechin contents extracted from the powdered tea leaves using the liquid nitrogen were higher than the finely chopped and the cut tea leaves. And the optimum extraction time was 30 min. The tea leaves incubated at -5˚C (2 hr) had higher caffeine and catechin contents than the fresh leaves. Likewise, caffeine content fo new leaves was significantly higher than old leaves. The Korean wild tea accessions showed high caffeine, EGC, and ECGC contents compared to the introduced tea cultivars. Specifically, the content of caffeine in Wolchul 3-13 was six times higher than the Japanese tea cultival "Saemidori".
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