Occurrence, exposure estimation, and dietary risk assessment of biogenic amines in tea samples marketed in Malaysia

Biogenic amines (BAs) are one of the most studied food contaminants due to their widespread distribution in food matrices. However, the occurrence and dietary risks of BAs in tea, particularly in Malaysia, have not been comprehensively investigated. This study evaluates the occurrence of BAs in selected tea samples from Malaysia's market, and the estimation of the dietary exposure to assess the risk of their dietary intake. The targeted BAs (tyramine, histamine, tryptamine, spermine, spermidine, putrescine, and cadaverine) were extracted with 0.1 M HCl using ultrasound, followed by derivatization using dansyl chloride prior to high performance liquid chromatographic separation. The validated method was applied to analyzing BAs in various tea samples of different origins. Results showed that the occurrence of histamine (14.3 to 69.5 μg g-1) in fully fermented tea, semi-fermented tea, non-fermented tea, post-fermented tea, and tisanes was 8, 0, 63, 17, and 0%, respectively. Spermidine was found in all samples (except 2 tisanes) with concentrations ranging from 17.6 to 105.4 μg g-1. Tyramine was identified as the most prevalent BA (7.2 to 1271.7 μg g-1), with a detection frequency of 90.2%. Overall, the average total BAs content in fully fermented tea (284.2 μg g-1), semi-fermented tea (677.0 μg g-1), non-fermented tea (783.8 μg g-1), post-fermented tea (204.6 μg g-1), and tisanes (134.2 μg g-1) were below the recommended level of 1000 μg g-1. Dietary exposure was determined by estimated daily intake, whereas risk assessment was evaluated using the hazard quotient (HQ) and hazard index (HI) approaches. Based on the obtained HQ (< 0.017322) and HI (< 0.033437), the dietary exposure to BAs through the consumption of tea in Malaysia does not pose potential health risks to consumers.