Recently, Chinese researchers published an article in the journal Molecular Plants that they have deciphered the genome of tea trees, one of the world’s three major plants cultivated to make beverages. Their work will help explain why tea is widely consumed as a beverage across the world and will hopefully bring about new varieties of tea trees.

To date, the genomic sequencing of coffee and cocoa trees—the world’s two other ‘beverage plants’ —were completed in Europe and the United States, respectively.

In 2010, a research team led by Kunming Institute of Botany researcher Gao Lizhi, launched the world’s first tea tree genome project. The research team was joined by scientists from South China Agricultural University, Yunnan Agricultural University and other institutions. Over the past few years, these researchers have completed the genomic sequence, assembly, annotation and analysis of the big-leaf tea tree ‘Yunkang 10’, obtaining the first ever high-quality tea reference genome map.

Natural selection contributed to the substantial amplification of genes that make tea trees resistant to environmental stress. This explains why tea trees can be planted extensively across diverse habitats with different climatic conditions in Asia, Africa, Europe, the   Americas and Oceania, and become a worldwide crop. BY LIN XIAOCHUN, JING