Abstract: Tea aroma is one of the important factors affecting tea quality, and is also a biochemical and physiological characteristic of tea trees in response to the environmental in the process of evolution. The regulation of light on plant growth and development has been widely studied, and the influence of light wave on secondary metabolites of tea trees has been a topic of increasing interest. Studies on the regulatory mechanism of different light sources on the formation of volatile aroma compounds during tea processing will contribute to tea quality improvement. In this paper, the pigments that occur in tea trees in response to light signals, and the effect of light on aroma compounds of tea are elaborated. Emphasis is put on the metabolic characteristics of various aroma substances under different light quality conditions, and future prospects for the application of light quality in tea processing are discussed.

Key words: light quality, aroma metabolites in tea, terpenes, phenylpropanoids/benzenoids, volatile fatty acid derivatives, glycosidically bound volatile compounds