Theaflavins are the main components of black tea,which have great potential and promising applications in the fields of foods and medicines.Base on the synthesis mechanism of theaflavin,the advance of the main preparation methods of theaflavin was summerized,such as direct extraction and preparation in vitro which can be divided into chemical oxidation method,enzymatic oxidation method and biomimetic synthesis method.The primal problem of the above synthesis methods,such as the inability to achieve industrialization,were also addressed,possible future research fields were reviewed in this paper,with the aim of providing a reference for the research and development of preparation of theaflavins.