The great prevalence of thin‐layer chromatography over high‐performance liquid chromatography is connected with the possibility of analyzing many samples in parallel. Therefore, the method is often used in screening and/or effect directed analysis to compare composition and chemical/biological properties of many samples in one run. It was already proved, that high performance thin‐layer chromatography, in many cases, can replace high‐performance liquid chromatography for quantitative analysis. The main aim of the paper is to show that simple thin‐layer chromatography can also be used as a quantitative or at least as a semi‐quantitative method, even when it concerns effect directed analysis e.g. direct bioautography. Chlorogenic acid content was measured in four methanol extracts of various green coffees and in one extract of black coffee using thin‐layer chromatography with ultraviolet detection and thin‐layer chromatography with effect directed detection. High‐performance liquid chromatography was used as a reference method. Additionally, total contents of polyphenols and antioxidants were estimated using thin‐layer chromatography or dot‐blot on chromatography plates. These results were compared to spectrophotometric methods. It was proved that thin‐layer chromatography can be used as a quantitative (using densitometry) or semi‐quantitative method (using other detection methods including effect directed detection) as well as for estimating total antioxidants or polyphenols content.