Future Perspectives in the Omics Era for Tea Breeding

Tea is one of the most consumed beverages worldwide, known for its flavor, aroma, and health benefits. The demand for improved tea plant (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze) cultivars with enhanced traits, such as yield, quality, stress tolerance, and pest resistance, necessitates the application of advanced breeding techniques. The advance of omics technologies, including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, has revolutionized the field of tea breeding, offering unprecedented opportunities for genetic improvement and enhancement of tea plants. In this chapter, we discussed the potential applications and future prospects of omics technologies in tea plant breeding, with a focus on the telomere-to-telomere (T2T) assembly, pan-genomes, epigenomics, genome selection, and emerging innovative technologies that can overcome limitations in omics studies.