Metabolic Evidence on Vintage Effect in Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) Plants

Recent metabolomics studies have reported diverse metabolites of tea depending on tea ( Camellia sinensis ) cultivars, cultivation conditions and geographical location. However, these studies were limited the effects of these conditions on metabolome of tea leaves in a single year. We explored the year-to-year variations in leaf metabolome of two tea ( C. sinensis ) cultivars over a period of five successive years from 2015 to 2019 to determine vintage tea products, such as in grapes or wines, and showed a clear metabolic differentiations of fresh tea leaves. Also, the best conditions of climate were suggested through an association of rainfall and sun-expose time with the metabolism of theanine in taste- or flavor-rich tea cultivar and of catechin compounds in EGCG3″Me-rich tea cultivar, thereby providing the potential vintage tea tailored to the cultivar. Since vintage wine is derived from grapes grown in a year under good climatic conditions, which provides high quality of wine in the best year, the current result highlights important information relevant to tea metabolome associated with climatic conditions in a specific year and the manufacture of vintage tea with unique quality.