POTENTIAL OF MULTI-ELEMENT ISOTOPIC APPROACH FOR GEOGRAPHICAL ORIGIN DISCRIMINATION OF TEA

摘要

The determination of strontium and lead isotope abundance ratios by MC-ICP-MS (multi-collection inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) has been applied to 28 authentic teas from various origin. A noticeably different value of ~(87)Sr/~(86)Sr has been obtained for Japanese tea. A distinctive trend of Pb-isotope ratios has been observed for the different geographic regions of sample origin. The combination of isotopic and elemental concentrations tremendously increases the discrimination possibilities compared to a single isotopic or elemental system.