Cashew is a tropical tree with immense commercial value and the use of its various parts in the confectionary, food, herbal and tanning industry has gained tremendous importance. Thus, the development of quality control method for routine analysis of various products of this widely used plant would be a great help to analysts. The phytochemistry of this plant has not been explored in detail. Anacardium occidentale Linn. (cashew) is reported to contain many antioxidant and polyphenolic compounds. However, there have been no reports published for the HPTLC analysis of the extracts of cashew leaves. Hence, an attempt has been made to develop a HPTLC method for estimation of catechin from leaf extracts. The present paper reveals a rapid high performance thin layer chromatographic method developed for quantitation of catechin from extracts of cashew leaves. The chromatographic parameters such as solvent system, development time, saturation time, detection wavelength were optimized. The mobile phase toluene: ethyl acetate: methanol: formic acid (6:6:1:0.1v/v/v/v) gave the best resolution for various components. The separation of various components and quantitation of amount of catechin was successfully carried out from extracts of cashew leaves. The aqueous extract of leaves contained a higher amount of catechin as compared to ethanol extract. The presence of tannins and phenolics was visualised as bluish-black bands with 5% alcoholic FeCl₃ as visualising agent. The method can prove to be a rapid, sensitive and economic alternative as compared to other chromatographic methods especially HPLC for detection of catechin in various food products and herbal formulations.