According to Voice of China, "Live China", it is now the spring tea market and the research team of Anhui Agricultural University has solved the genome-wide information of the world's most widely distributed Chinese tea tree after ten years, which marks a major breakthrough in the basic research on the Chinese tea tree biology, and for the first time, the mystery of tea with unique flavors is solved from the genome level system.

It is understood that the world's main tea plants belong to two varieties: Chinese species and Assam species, the former is small, widely distributed, suitable for six major teas such as green tea; the latter is large, mainly distributed in the tropics and subtropical region where is warm in winter, black tea and Pu'er tea are suitable. Professor Wan Xiaochun, the national key laboratory of tea tree biology and resource utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, took the national tea tree variety “Shuchazao” as a material, after ten years, he obtained high-quality genomic sequence sketches. The integrity and quality of genome assembly was much higher than the assembly level of other plants of the same type.

As we all know, the unique and numerous flavors of tea are mainly determined by secondary metabolites such as catechin, theanine, caffeine and terpene in tea. Wan Xiaochun said: "The above research results will further promote the species evolution of Camellia plants, the formation mechanism and quality control of tea flavor substances, molecular breeding, the conservation and utilization of tea germplasm resources and the study of the healthy ingredients of tea .It is also of great significance to the prosperity and spread of Chinese tea culture."

Source: http://www.xinhuanet.com

Time: 2019.04.26