Abstract: In order to investigate the relationship between quality and polyphenols content of cigarettes, 6 kinds of polyphenols in 17 brands of Virginia type cigarettes and 6 brands of blended type cigarettes were determined by reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography.The results showed that:1)higher grade or higher smoking quality tended towards higher content of total or major polyphenols in tested domesticVirginia type cigarettes;2)the content of polyphenols in blended type cigarettes was lower than that in Virginia type cigarettes;3)the content of polyphenols in 4 domestic blended cigarettes was higher than that in 2 imported blended cigarettes;and 4)the neochlorogenic acid, chlorogenic acid and rutin were major polyphenols in these determined cigarettes, chlorogenic acid accounted for about 60% of total polyphenols.It was concluded that the content of polyphenols in cigarettes might be related to the type, grade and production area of cigarettes, the variation of total polyphenols in cigarettes could be well represented by the sum of the contents of neochlorogenic acid, chlorogenic acid and rutin, even by chlorogenic acid alone.