The tea science major of Yunnan Agricultural University was founded in 1972, and later the Tea Academy was established in 2006. The major was approved as a national and provincial specialty in 2009, then a brand specialty of Yunnan province in 2016, and a provincial-level project focusing on cultivating outstanding talents in 2017. In 2019, it has become the first batch of the first-class undergraduate major in Yunnan Province; in 2020, it has been selected as a nationally first-class undergraduate major by the Ministry of Education; and in 2021, the undergraduate enrollment started.
In recent years, bestowed with Yunnan’s unique advantages of tea plant resources, sharing the status of key characteristic industries of tea and the policy advantages in creating the world-class “Green Food Brand” in Yunnan Province, the Tea Academy has actively adapted to the needs of regional economic development of tea and national quality standards to cultivate numerous inter-disciplinary talents with solid basic knowledge, broad employment opportunity, practical ability and innovative consciousness.
The Tea Academy has a key laboratory of intelligent organic tea garden construction in Yunnan province, Yunnan organic tea industry intelligent engineering research center, Yunnan ministry of agriculture tea tree and tea processing scientific observation and test station of agriculture, Yunnan pu’er tea research institute, research platform of tea science experimental center, on-campus tea tree cognitive practice center and external 14 production practice base for teaching and scientific research, etc. The academy is studying 7 projects of national natural science foundation, post scientist of national modern agricultural tea industry system, scientific and technological innovation construction base of Yunnan organic pu’er tea digital tea garden and other projects, with accumulated scientific research funds of more than 20 million Yuan.
There are 27 teachers in the college of tea, including 9 senior teachers and 9 deputy senior teachers. And the proportion of senior professional titles in all is 66.7%. Among the faculty members, there are 1 national excellent teacher, 1 post scientist of national modern Agriculture and Tea Industry system, 2 “Industrial Technology Leading Talents”, 1 chief technician, and 1 Top-notch Young Talents of Yunnan National High-level Talents Special Support Program, and 3 young and middle-aged academic leaders of Yunnan Province. There are 2 doctoral supervisors and 15 master supervisors in the college.
The college has the right to grant master's degree, and has two admission majors: Tea (academic master) and Agronomy and Seed (professional master). We pay attention to the full coverage of tea theory and practice teaching, in order to realize the cultivation of talents supported by scientific research platform. We are making great efforts on university-enterprise cooperation and combination of the development of production, education and research, to better lead the cultivation of tea science and technology talents with the characteristics of Pu’er tea resources.