From rhizosphere to gut: microbial drivers of tea flavor and bioactivity.

Across cultivation, processing, and consumption, tea quality and bioactivity are shaped by plant-microbiota interactions. This review develops a field-to-gut framework centered on the tea plant holobiont and downstream microbial partners. Within that frame, rhizosphere and endophytic microbiota are examined as regulators of flavor precursors, host metabolism, and defense. Processing microbiota are considered for remodeling tea chemistry and gut microbiota for bioactivating tea compounds, with microbial transmission, ecological replacement, and metabolite carryover distinguished and translational directions identified in microbiome-guided cultivation, controlled fermentation, and metabotype-informed nutrition.