Introduction
Tea is one of the most popular beverages in the world
[1,2]. With the increasing awareness on health and
nutrition issues in beverage market, consumption of tea
drinks, especially green tea has been increasing significantly
in recent years. Accompanied with the consumption
of ready-made tea drinks in bottles, packs and cans, a
large amount of tea grounds are released annually by
beverage companies. Although only small amounts of tea
grounds are converted into raw compost material, most
are generally buried [3]. In view of the high nutritive value
and multiple functional components, tea grounds could
be used as feed resources or nutrient supplementary.
However, unreasonable utilization of tea grounds could
lead to great waste and environmental pollution, especially
in summer. There is increasing demand for efficient use of
food by-products due to economic and environmental
concerns [4].
Nowadays in China, utilization of wet or dry tea