Obesity is a critical health issue worldwide. For a long time, the concept of drinking tea for health and

pleasure is widely accepted. The strain of Andraca theae lives on the tea leaf and the bioactivity of its

metabolites in the feces is unknown yet. Thus, the objective of this study was to investigate whether

the extract of tea (Taiwan Tea Experiment Station No.12 (TE)) and its metabolites from Andraca theae

(TME) could prevent obesity in the high fat diet-induced obese rats. Our results showed that TE had

higher concentrations of epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) and caffeine than that from TME. TE significantly

decreased abdominal adipose tissue, especially epididymal fat via increasing preadipocyte factor 1

(Pref-1), SRY (sex determining region Y)-box 9 (SOX-9) and decreasing peroxisome proliferator-activated

receptor (PPAR ), CCAAT/enhancer binding protein (C/EBP) , C/EBP and C/EBP protein expression.

Taken together, these results suggest that the content of tea polyphenols in TE play an important role for

alleviating abdominal fat.