A new perspective on the benzo(a)pyrene generated in tea seeds during roasting

The detection of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), a strong carcinogen, in edible oil has been widely reported. This work studied the concentration of BaP in different parts of tea seeds generated during roasting from a new perspective. A novel method was established and used to calculate the actual generated concentration of BaP, which is different from the previous direct determination of BaP concentration and also takes into account the concentration of the lost BaP. The results showed that the loss rate of BaP in husks was the highest (92.7%), while that in the peeled tea seeds was the lowest (66.9%). Conversely, the generated concentration of BaP in peeled seeds was the highest (6.7 μg·kg-1), while that in husks was the lowest (2.8 μg·kg-1). The change in concentration of BaP during roasting was mainly related to the components of different parts of tea seeds. Finally, the lost BaP-d12 in tea seeds was detected in other parts of the semi-closed simplified model, which confirmed that BaP will migrate during roasting. This work emphasised that it was necessary to modify the calculation method for the generated concentration of BaP in food during thermal processing, which will be helpful to explore the generation mechanism of BaP.