Are you saying the DNA of tea plants wouldnt necesarily lead us back
to the Yunnan region in general or to a specific variety if it still
existed. Even if it didnt exist there should be the closest surviving
variety. I guess has any DNA work been done on tea?

Jim

Nigel wrote:
> On Sep 25, 2:13 pm, Space Cowboy > wrote:
> > Im developing a new appreciation for
> > Assam because it is the primal tea stock. I came across a website
> > yesterday that said the Yunnan assam was intentionally planted along
> > the silk road into India via Burma. My books say independent
> > geographical isolated areas.
>
> Actuallu Yunnan Assam does not exist taxonomically . The large leaf
> Yunnan is actually a subvariety of Camellia - Camellia sinensis var.
> sinensis f. macrophylla
>
> The taxonomy of tea has been continually disputed since 1752 when
> Linnaeus originally named it Thea sinensis (the naming based on a 1712
> drawing of a specimen collected from Indonesia). Later Linnaeus
> abandoned the specific sinensis and substituted T. bohea and T.
> viridis (effectively black tea and green tea; the great taxonomist
> being unaware that either type of tea could be manufactured from any
> tea variety. There followed centuries of dispute between the claims
> of Camellia and Thea as the correct genus for cultivated tea. The
> Gordian Knot was effectively dealt with in 1891 by Carl Ernst Otto
> Kuntze whose pioneering work entirely revised plant taxonomy (but
> whose efforts were until long after his death reviled, then buried, by
> the academic elite). Otto recognized tea as a true Camellia and today
> tea is botanically referred to simply as Camellia sinensis (L.) O.
> Kuntze, in recognition. This cleared the botanical decks of hundreds
> of tea "species" - C. assamica, C. irrawadiensis, C. hongkongensis, C.
> taliensis, and C. macropylla amongst them. Post Kuntze all these
> became varieties of C. sinensis. While dispute still continues about
> the genetic contribution of a host of geographical varieties, we now
> have since 1958, a simple formalized classification thanks to Sealy:
> Camellia sinensis var. sinensis for the China type bush (capable of
> withstanding cold down to frost conditions) and Camellia sinensis var.
> assamica for the larger leaved Assam type bush more typical of the
> tropics, incapable of withstanding frost. Note that Camellia sinensis
> var. sinensis is further divided into sub varieties: Camellia sinensis
> var. sinensis f. parviflora - the very small leaved bush type found in
> Japan (e.g. Yabukita) and Camellia sinensis var. sinensis f.
> macrophylla - the Yunnan 'Big Leaf' bush which mainly provides pu erh.
>
> You will still find many tea scientists and tea book authors locked in
> a time warp and using old taxonomic nomenclature (I do myself
> sometimes) and a further complication is that C. sinensis is an out
> breeder. A myriad of hybrids exist between the species, varieties and
> sub varieties - both naturally by cross pollination (though limited by
> geography) and intentionally by plant breeders where any combination
> may be tried.
>
> Nigel at Teacraft