Abstract
Tea, made from young shoots of tea plants, is one of the most popular beverages worldwide and offers a wealth of health benefits. Tea health functions result from unique functional components contained in tea leaves, e.g. theanine, catechins and caffeine, that are also necessary for tea quality. Therefore, it is important to improve the content of unique functional components in tea leaves by cultivation, breeding and biotechnology. In Japanese green tea cultivation, it is possible to regulate the content of these functional components by the season and timing of planting, nitrogen fertilization and covering culture. While a part of the molecular mechanisms involved in the biosynthesis of these components is understood, details are not yet completely clarified. Further research is required to elucidate the molecular mechanism of the accumulation and the relationship among the components to efficiently establish innovative cultivation methods and new cultivars. Next generation sequencing systems are also accelerating the construction of a genomic breeding platform for tea plants. In the future, it will be necessary to establish an efficient tailor-made breeding and cultivation system that can customize individual teas adapted to each cultivation area based on environmental factors and molecular information about the tea itself.
