The National Science Foundation has awarded a $931,000 grant to a team of researchers who will study the effect of climate change on the world's most popular beverage: tea.

The project was inspired by the research of Selena Ahmed, who was a graduate and postdoctoral student in the Training in Education and Critical Research Skills Program at Tufts University. Her co-principal investigator for that work was Rick Stepp, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Florida and a member of the NSF grant team.

Ahmed wrote her doctoral dissertation on the subject, as well as scientific articles and co-authored a book entitled Tea Horse Road: China's Ancient Trade Road to Tibet, which is about tea production and trade in China.

Her work focused on Southwestern China's Yunnan province and she will act as co-principal investigator in the four-year NSF-funded project. She is now an assistant professor in sustainable food systems at Montana State University.

The Yunnan province of China is known for its gourmet red and black teas. People drink tea habitually in many countries around the world. Surprisingly, one of the biggest markets for tea is the United States, where Americans drink 3.6 billion gallons annually, spending upwards of $2 billion on the plant. The world's leading producers of tea are China, India, Indonesia, and Argentina.

Tea growers in China have perceived a diminishment to the quality of tea in recent years which they ascribe to warmer winters and longer rainy seasons than in the past. The active chemical components in tea are affected by climatic factors, which alter properties such as taste. The quality of tea grown is important to the farmers upon whose livelihood it depends.  

Tufts University biologist Colin Orians, who will head the NSF-funded study, hopes to help tea growers by studying the adversities to tea production and gauging consumer response. He also points out that what is happening to tea could be true of other agricultural products as well.