A process for synthesis of enatiomerically pure or enatiomerically enriched or racemic mixture of (+ and/or −) epicatechin and its intermediates, comprising the steps of: (i) obtaining penta-protected quercetin (ii) reducing the penta-protected quercetin obtained from step (i) (iii) optionally deprotecting the compound of step (ii) (iv) reducing the compound obtained from step (ii) or step (iii) in the presence of a chiral/achiral reducing agent to obtain a chiral intermediate (v) deprotecting and/or hydrogenation of the chiral intermediate obtained from step (iv) to obtain (−)-epicatechin (vi) optionally simultaneously deprotecting and by drogenation of the compound obtained from step (ii) to obtain racemic epicatechin.
