Skip to main content

Introduction

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
  • 1083 Accesses

Abstract

Tea (Camellia sinensis) is the oldest non-alcoholic caffeine-containing beverage in the world. Chinese were the first to use tea as a medicinal drink, later as a beverage and have been doing so for the past 3,000 years. Tea is an evergreen, perennial, cross-pollinated plant and grows naturally as tall as 15 m. However, under cultivated condition, the bush height of 60 -100 cm is maintained for harvesting the tender leaves to be processed for making the beverages. Although black tea or fermented tea is most popular, yet semi-fermented tea or non-fermented tea are also used as drink. Tea was used initially as a medicine, later as a beverage and now proven well as future potential of becoming an important industrial and pharmaceutical raw material. Scientific reports in the last two decades have validated many beneficial claims for tea. This chapter describes the over view of morphological description, health benefits and most importantly the history as well as landmark discovery of biotechnological works of tea and its wild species.

Keywords

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  • Aiton W (1789) Hortus kewensis, or a catalogue of the plants. Royal Botanical Garden, Kew, pp 48–57

    Google Scholar 

  • Allemain G (1999) Multiple actions of EGCG, the main component of green tea. Bull Cancer 86:721–724

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Booth WB (1830) History and description of the species of Camellia and Thea. Hort Soc London 7:519–562

    Google Scholar 

  • Barua PK (1963) Classification of tea plant. Two Bud 10:3–11

    Google Scholar 

  • Bezbaruah HP (1971) Cytological investigation in the family theaceae-I. Chromosome numbers in some Camellia species and allied genera. Carylogia 24:421–426

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen Z, Liao H (1982) Obtaining plantlet through another culture of tea plants. Zhongguo Chaye 4:6–7

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Chen ZY, Law WI, Yao XQ, Lau CW, Ho WK, Huang Y (2000) Inhibitory effects of purified green tea epicatechins in construction and proliferation of arterial smooth muscle cells. Acta Pharma Sci 21:835–840

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Eden T (1958) The development of tea culture. In: Eden T (ed) Tea. Longman, London, pp 1–4

    Google Scholar 

  • Forrest GI (1969) Studies on the polyphenol metabolism of tissue culture derived from the tea plant (C. sinensis L.). Biochem J 113:765–772

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gomes A, Vedasiromoni JR, Das M, Sharma RM, Ganguly DK (1995) Antihyperglycemic effect of black tea (Camellia sinensis) in rat. J Ethnopharmacol 45:223–226

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hamilton-Miller JM (1995) Antimicrobial properties of tea (Camellia sinensis (L) kuntze). Antimicrob Ag Chemother 39:2375–2377

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hashimoto F, Kashiwada Y, Nonaka GI, Nishioka I, Nohara T, Cosentibno LM, Lee KH (1996) Evaluation of tea polyphenols as anti-HIV agents. Med Chem Lett 6960:695–700

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kato M (1985) Regeneration of plantlets from tea stem callus. Jap J Breed 35:317–322

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kingdon-Ward F (1950) Does wild tea exist? Nature 165:297–299

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kwanashie HO, Usman H, Nkim SA (1989) Screening of “Kargasok tea”: anorexia and obesity. Biochem Soc Trans 17:1132–1133

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mondal TK, Bhattacharya A, Sood A, Ahuja PS (2000) Factor effecting induction and storage of encapsulated tea (Camellia sinensis (L). O. Kuntze) somatic embryos. Tea 21:92–100

    Google Scholar 

  • Mondal TK, Bhattacharya A, Ahuja PS (2001a) Induction of synchronous secondary embryogenesis of Tea (Camellia inensis). J Plant Physiol 158:945–951

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mondal TK, Bhattacharya A, Ahuja PS, Chand PK (2001b) Factor effecting Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation of tea (Camellia sinensis (L). O. Kuntze). Plant Cell Rep 20:712–720

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Nadamitsu S, Andoh Y, Kondo K, Segawa M (1986) Interspecific hybrids between Camellia vietnamensis and C. chrysantha by cotyledon culture. Jap J Breed 36:309–313

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ogutuga DBA, Northcote DH (1970a) Caffeine formation in tea callus tissue. J Exp Bot 21:258–273

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Okubo T, Juneja LR (1997) Chemistry and application of green tea. CRC Press, New York, pp 109–121

    Google Scholar 

  • Sealy JR (1958) A revision of the genus Camellia. Royal Horticultural Society, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Spedding DJ, Wilson AT (1964) Caffeine metabolism. Nature 204:73

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sueoka N, Suganuma M, Sueoka E, Okabe S, Matsuyama S, Imai K, Nakachi K, Fujiki H (2001) A new function of green tea: prevention of lifestyle-related diseases. Ann N Y Acad Sci 928:274–280

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Takeuchi A, Matsumoto S, Hayatsu M (1994) Chalcone synthase from Camellia sinensis isolation of the cDNAs and the organ-specific and sugar-responsive expression of the genes. Plant Cell Physiol 35:1011–1018

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tapiero H, Tew KD, Ba GN, Mathe G (2002) Polyphenols: do they play a role in the prevention of Human pathogens? Biomed Pharma 56:200–207

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Vasisht K, Sharma PD, Karan M, Rakesh D, Vyas S, Sethi S, Manktala R (2003) In: Study to promote the industrial exploitation of green tea poly-phenols in India. ICSHT-UNIDO, Italy. pp. 15–22

    Google Scholar 

  • Wachira FN, Waugh R, Hackett CA, Powell W (1995) Detection of genetic diversity in tea (Camellia sinensis) using RAPD markers. Genome 38:201–210

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wight W (1959) Nomenclature and classification of tea plant. Nature 183:1726–1728

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wight W (1962) Tea classification revised. Curr Sci 31:298–299

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiseman SA, Balentine DA, Frei B (1977) Antioxidant in tea. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutra 37:705–718

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yu H, Oho T, Xu LX (1995) Effects of several tea components on acid resistant of human tooth enamel. J Dental Sci 23:101–105

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tapan Kumar Mondal .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer India

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Mondal, T. (2014). Introduction. In: Breeding and Biotechnology of Tea and its Wild Species. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1704-6_1

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics