Patent ID: 8337909

Claim:
A process of extracting procyanidins from a procyanidin-containing plant material, said process comprising the steps of: (a) treating said procyanidin-containing plant material with a hydroxide compound having a normality of approximately 0.1 to approximately 6.0 in the presence of an inert gas for approximately 15 minutes and at a temperature of approximately 60° C.; (b) subsequent to said step (a), neutralizing said hydroxide compound to a pH of approximately 2 to approximately 7; (c) subsequent to said step (b), extracting lipids; (d) subsequent to said step (c), extracting procyanidin monomers, dimers and trimers from said procyanidin-containing plant material using ethyl acetate; and (e) subsequent to said step (c), extracting procyanidin tetramers, pentamers and hexamers from said procyanidin-containing plant material by homogenization with acetone:water:acetic acid.