New Research Indicates Three Distinct Domestication Events for Camellia sinensis

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joelbct
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Tue Oct 10, 2017 6:56 pm

Indications for Three Independent Domestication Events for the Tea Plant (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze) and New Insights into the Origin of Tea Germplasm in China and India Revealed by Nuclear Microsatellites (2016)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4878758/

Research by scientists in China, India, Sri Lanka, and UK presents new findings about tea genetics, and contravenes some prevailing wisdom by concluding that tea was domesticated independently at least three separate times, twice in China and once in India.

Highlights:

"We demonstrate that Chinese Assam tea is a distinct genetic lineage from Indian Assam tea, and that China tea sampled from India was likely introduced from China directly. Our results further indicate that China type tea, Chinese Assam type tea and Indian Assam type tea are likely the result of three independent domestication events from three separate regions across China and India."

"The interesting finding in our study was that Assam tea from China is not closely related to that of India. All analyses performed... clearly show that the Chinese and Indian Assam teas are genetically distinct and showed a significant genetic differentiation. Compared to China, the recorded cultivation history of Assam type tea is relatively short in India. It has been earlier assumed that Indian Assam tea was introduced from Yunnan, China through Myanmar to India, even though it was discovered in Assam, India in 1823 and subsequently cultivated here. Given the short breeding history of this tea in Assam, it seems unlikely that plants introduced from China to India would form distinct lineages in both countries."
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debunix
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Sat Dec 02, 2017 9:44 pm

Very interesting. Sounds like the importation of the chinese tea plants got the people of India to look at their own native plants and start working with them. Wonder how that started....did someone see a fuss being made over the imported plants, and recognize that there were others like that out in the woods ?
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joelbct
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Wed Dec 27, 2017 12:48 am

debunix wrote:
Sat Dec 02, 2017 9:44 pm
Very interesting. Sounds like the importation of the chinese tea plants got the people of India to look at their own native plants and start working with them. Wonder how that started....did someone see a fuss being made over the imported plants, and recognize that there were others like that out in the woods ?
They are saying DNA analysis of the ~500 plants they tested indicates that Indian Assam tea is distinct from China Assam Tea, and was probably domesticated separately by Indigenous people, long before the British began cultivation in 1823:

Furthermore, one of the near-wild tea samples from Margherita, India and the cultivated Assam tea from India grouped together genetically, which further suggests that Indian Assam tea originated and was domesticated locally.

In addition, historical evidence suggests that the “Singpho” tribe of Margherita, India used indigenous tea from wild plants before tea plants were introduced to Assam [78]. The “Assam race” was known among the hill tribes in Arunachal Pradesh, India, who used the tender leaves to prepare a traditional drink. This was well before the initiation of tea cultivation by the British.

Together, the evidence supports a likely independent domestication of Assam type tea in Assam, India, and should be regarded as a distinct genetic lineage from ‘Assam’ tea in China.


The authors are mainly affiliated with China State research institutions (also UK, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and India). Quite a project!

ImageImage
figure 1: Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) for 392 tea samples collected from China and India after regrouping based on STRUCTURE showing the "pure" and Mosaic tea groups. Pure groups: green diamonds = China tea group, red triangles = Chinese Assam tea group, blue triangles = Indian Assam tea group, × = Mosaic group. Coloring in legend represent group assignation. Pink diamonds denote China tea samples from India clustering with China tea from China. figure 2: UPGMA tree of three groups of Chinese and Indian tea samples excluding the Mosaic group based on the STRUCTURE analysis. (they call hybrids "mosaic") Coloring represents initial type assignation. Pink lines denote China tea samples from India clustering with China tea from China.
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debunix
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Wed Dec 27, 2017 10:50 am

Even cooler, to think that this plant attracted people to try steeping its leaves in 3 truly independent times/places.....having finally visited a tea growing area, it's clear that the plant is attractive, but on those rainy overcast days, there was nothing about them to suggest the drinking possibilities inherent in the leaf. When I go hiking in new places, there are plants that do seem to ask to be touched, leaves bruised a bit and sniffed....and having played at growing a lot of herbs over the years, I notice mostly the little minty herbs, and not big shrubs with shiny thick leaves.

And: why did the Assam tea not become popular beyond the local area after initial domestication there? Limited plantings, problems with scaling up, or just not enough time to develop really refined processing before they were overtaken by the imported chinese techniques?
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