Overview

The southwest of China is the origin center of tea plants. Tea plants are widely distributed in China and their varieties are very rich. Wild tea is one of the major categories. Wild tea refers to the natural growth of tea plants living in the natural environment without human intervention. Wild tea plants are widely distributed in China, mainly in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and other places.

Tea plants are thought to be originated from the southwestern China including Yunnan and the adjacent provinces.Wild teas grown in the aforementioned areas in China for over a 100 years are considered as valuable resources for basic research, the genome sequencing of a wild relative or ancient tree would pave the way to unravel the evolutionary processes affecting the genome of tea plants as well as facilitate the mining of elite alleles.

Wild teas genomic resources provide evolutionary insight into tea plants and lay the foundation for better understanding the biosynthesis of beneficial natural compounds.

Genomic information

Reference

Zhang Weiyiet al. Title : Genome assembly of wild tea tree DASZ reveals pedigree and selection history of tea varieties.Nature communications 11.1(2020).doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-17498-6