If both pretreatments are carried out,the water extraction shows better performance than the extraction with ethanol in terms of yield and total polyphenol content. Also the content of rosmarinic acid is highly increased with respect to ethanol extrac- tions; however, the concentration of carnosic acid is usually below the detection limit (0.0035 mg/mL). This can be explained on the basis of hydrophobicity of each compound,carnosic acid with two –OH groups and a –COOH group is much more hydrofobic than rosmarinic acid with four –OH groups and a –COOH group.Thus the solubility of carnosic acid in water is much lower than that of rosmaniric acid.