Tea breeding

Abstract

People drink three non-alcoholic beverages from natures resources, namely, tea, coffee and cocoa. Among these, tea is the most important drink for two-thirds of the world population due to its attractive aroma, taste and health benefits. It is a safe and easily affordable drink for all sections of the society. It has evoked great interest in the medical community in the last few decades as it shows with scientific evidence to prevent a number of human ailments. Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) of family Theaceae is a woody, perennial plantation crop (Fig 15.1a,b) with an economic life span of more than 60 years. Tea has become one of the most important agro-based, eco-friendly, labour intensive, employment generating, export-oriented industries in all the tea-growing countries. Tea occupies 2.7 million hectares of land all over the world with an annual global production of about 3.0 million tones (Table 15.1). Despite occupying only 16.4% of the total tea growing area of the world, India ranks first as a producer, consumer and exporter of black tea. However, because of its ever-increasing domestic consumption, India is still incapable of exporting more than 15.4% of the total production to the world tea market. Commercially, it contributes around 5.27% share on Indian gross national product and provides direct employment to about one million and indirect employment to about two million people. While India registered 835,200 tons of tea in 2004, China being the second largest producer accounts 820,000 tons in 2004 (Yajun et al. 2005).