ABSTRACT

Tea is one of the most important beverages that we consume very frequently. Tea is manufactured from the young tender leaves of Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze of family Theaceae. However, cultivated taxa comprise three main natural hybrids such as China type [C. sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze] or Assam type [Camellia assamica (Masters)] and Cambod or Southern type [C. assamica spp. lasiocalyx (Plan-chon ex Watt.)]. Apart from that it is believed that that some desirable traits such as anthocyanin pigmentation or special quality characters of Darjeeling tea might have been introduced from wild species such as Camellia irrawadiensis and Camellia taliensis (Wood and Barua, 1958). It is an openpollinated woody plantation crop producing cheaper non-alcoholic drink that has high medicinal value. Morphologically, it is an evergreen shrub cultivated in a wide range of climate, starting from humid and sub-humid tropical, sub-tropical to temperate countries, and grows largely on well-weathered acidic soils, with pH range of 4.5-5.5 (Mukhopadhyay and Mondal, 2014; Mukhopadhyay et al., 2016).