A research project led by Prof. Yin Junfeng of the Tea Research Institute of CAAS has received a 2025 National Science and Technology Progress Award (Second Class), the Chinese government announced on July 8 at the National Science and Technology Award Ceremony in Beijing.

The project addresses a persistent challenge in China's tea industry: more than 60 percent of the country's annual tea production comes from leaves harvested in summer and autumn, yet much of this yield has traditionally been discarded due to bitter taste and inferior quality. China has over 333,000 hectares of tea plantations.

Discarded summer-autumn tea leaves in the plantation

Cracking the bitterness code

The research team identified the primary driver of summer-autumn tea's harsh flavor: excessively high levels of ester-type catechins. They developed two precision processing approaches: C-ring de-esterification of ester-type catechins to convert bitterness into a sweet aftertaste, and oxidative coupling of catechins to transform bitterness into a mellow, refreshing taste.

Building on these breakthroughs, the team established a three-tier cascade utilization system: de-bittering and de-astringency of raw leaves, targeted quality enhancement of tea extracts, and efficient purification of functional components such as catechins and L-theanine. This systematic approach enables multi-level value extraction from summer-autumn tea.

Technical framework for high-value utilization of summer-autumn tea

From laboratory to production

The technology has moved from research papers to commercial application. To date, 22 patents have been licensed and implemented, generating over 23 million yuan in transfer fees. Twenty-three industrial production lines have been established across the country. The institute has collaborated with major tea and beverage companies, including Chayan Yuese, Chagee, Nongfu Spring, and Master Kong (Kangshifu); related products now hold more than 60 percent of the market.

Joint tea innovation research center with Master Kong (Kangshifu)

The project has created a new food-industry tea sector with an annual consumption of 400,000 tons of summer-autumn tea as raw material, shifting China's tea consumption from the traditional hot-brewed model toward a diversified, food-integrated paradigm.

Over the past three years, the technology has been deployed across 52 tea-producing counties, enabling the deep-processing utilization of 310,000 tons of summer-autumn tea and increasing incomes for 300,000 tea farmers by an average of over 33,000 yuan per hectare.

Collaborative effort

The research was conducted in collaboration with Hunan Agricultural University, Zhejiang University, and other institutions, with long-term support from the National Tea Industry Technology System and national R&D programs. The team has also conducted extensive field training through science and technology missions, expert groups, and on-site workshops in tea regions across Zhejiang, Guizhou, and Yunnan, delivering hundreds of training sessions and cultivating thousands of grassroots technical professionals.

"For us, the real measure of success isn't the award itself. It's seeing summer-autumn tea, once left to wither on the branch, now reaching consumers in forms we could hardly have imagined a decade ago," said Prof. Yin.

Prof. Yin Junfeng (right) and Prof. Xu Yongquan receiving the award in Beijing

By Zhou Ximai (zhouximai@caas.cn)