Tea germplasm are fundamental materials for production, cultivar development and biotechnology research, with important and potential value. In this paper, the achievements and progress of tea germplasm research in China for recent 20 years are systematically reviewed from the following aspects: exploration and collecting, conservation and cataloguing, identification and evaluation, molecular markers and genetic stability. The authors also propose short-and medium-term plans of tea germplasm researches in China, i.e., keeping collecting and introduction, deep identification and evaluation at the gene and individual level, enhancing innovation for breeding, constructing of core collections, and the construction of tea germplasm sharing platform.