Abstract
Due to the recent increase in the consumption of ready-to-drink beverages containing green tea, a method for authenticating the tea cultivar indicated on product label is needed. However, methods for isolating DNA and identifying the cultivar of the green tea used in the beverage have not been reported. We developed a method to identify the cultivar used in green tea infusions using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. DNA extracts were obtained by freeze-drying green tea infusions, followed by isopropyl alcohol precipitation, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide extraction, and purification with a commercial kit. Some SSR markers could be amplified using the purified DNA as a template, and peak patterns were matched to patterns from DNA extracted from fresh leaves of cultivars. Application of this method to a commercial green tea beverage identified a monovarietal.
