Evaluation of the production of cellular green tea in comparison with traditional commercial teas

Abstract

Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world. Tea production based on traditional agriculture faces problems such as high resource consumption, seasonality of production and climate change. Therefore, the aim of this study was to optimize tea production by cellular agriculture from a tea cell line developed in liquid embryo development (Ep) medium in a shake flask under controlled conditions. The chemical profile (catechins, alkaloids and L-theanine) of the laboratory grown tea was compared with commercial green teas. Local traditional green tea showed infusion contents of total catechins (175.3 ± 20.1 mg/200 mL), caffeine (75.5 ± 10.1 mg/200 mL) and L-theanine (14.0 ± 2.2 mg/200 mL), like commercial white tea from Nepal. However, the cellular tea showed low levels of catechins (6.87 ± 0.33 mg/200 mL), L-theanine (5.34 ± 0.60 mg/200 mL) and, absence of caffeine, suggesting possible relaxant properties. Fixation time influences the secondary metabolite profile in laboratory grown tea infusions. Degradation of catechins was detected with either no fixation or convection fixation (2 min at 100 °C). In contrast, prolonged fixation (90 min at 100 °C) stopped catechin degradation but reduced L-theanine by 26 %. Further studies are needed to optimize the cultivation conditions, bioactive content, processing steps (fixation and drying), organoleptic characteristics and food safety of laboratory grown tea.