Development of novel nanostructure gold-based catalysts with high performance and low cost is of a great scientific interest. Here, a new controllable coordination coating was facilely integrated onto gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) using low-cost natural polyphenols and ferric ions. Heat treatment, organic solvents, special instruments, or additive chemicals were not involved in the whole synthetic procedure. Due to the presence of the unique polyphenol-Fe 3+ shell, the as-prepared catalyst showed an improved catalytic performance, pH-responsive character and good stability towards the reduction of 4-NP.Noble metal NPs have received enormous interest in a wide variety of applications, especially in heterogeneous catalysis owing to their large specic surface areas and increased number of exposed metal atoms, which greatly change their catalytic and physicochemical properties. 1,2 Among them, Au NPs have been proved to exhibit extraordinary performance in a number of oxidation and reduction reactions.3-5 However, Au NPs in catalytic reactions oen show a strong tendency to aggregate because of their high surface energies, leading to the loss of their initial activities.6 Hence, core-shell architectures with a noble metal core preserved by an outer shell have recently attracted a great deal of attention for catalysis due to the following structural advantages: (a) the shell can hinder the aggregation of neighboring cores 7,8 and (b) remarkable catalytic activity may be achieved due to the unique identity of the shell or the interaction of the shell and the core.9,10 Over the years, a series of intriguing materials have been put into the design of such core-shell nanocatalyst systems with some specic merits.11,12 To name a few, wrapping Au NPs within mesoporous silica shells to endow them with high activity and outstanding stability even under harsh conditions; 13 coating metal-organic frameworks onto the surface of Au NPs to enhance the catalytic activity through a synergistic effect;14 encapsulating Au NPs within stimuli-responsive polymers to tune the mass transport of reactants and thus modulate the catalytic process.15 However, the above-mentioned synthetic procedures oen suffer from sophisticated and time-consuming steps and requirement of various toxic reagents, which may be impediments for some practical applications. Accordingly, a concise, facile and environmentally friendly approach should be developed to obtain a novel core-shell Au catalytic system with distinct performance. Polyphenols (PPs), which are commonly distributed in plant tissues to serve diverse biological roles, represent a wide range of physicochemical natures and thereby give rise to broad chemical versatility in industrial, pharmacological, biomedical, and food additive applications. 16,17 The dominant constituents for virtually all PPs are catechol and galloyl, which are known to possess strong metal chelation ability and materials surface binding affinity. 18,19 Recently, researchers found that catechol units and catechol ferric ion co...