Google Doodle Honours Famed Japanese Green Tea Researcher Michiyo Tsujimura on Her 133rd Birthday

Michiyo Tsujimura was also Japan’s first woman doctor of agriculture in 1932.

By Tasneem Akolawala | Updated: 17 September 2021 11:04 IST

Google Doodle Honours Famed Japanese Green Tea Researcher Michiyo Tsujimura on Her 133rd Birthday

Google celebrates Michiyo Tsujimara 133rd birthday with a doodle on the homepage

Highlights

Michiyo Tsujimara was born in 1888 in Okegawa, Japan
The researcher was able to isolate biter components of green tea
Okegawa City has a stone memorial in honour of her achievements

Google Doodle is celebrating the life of Japanese educator and biochemist Michiyo Tsujimura on her 133rd birthday. Tsujimura is known for her path breaking research into the nutritional benefits of green tea. The researcher found that green tea contained a large quantity of Vitamin C — the first molecular compound to be discovered in it. The Google Doodle depicts Tsujimura busy with her science experiments around the components of tea. Tsujimara was also able to isolate components that made green tea taste so bitter.

The tech giant is honouring Tsujimara with a doodle and has shared a glimpse of her journey through a dedicated post. Tsujimara was born in Okegawa, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, and was the country's first woman doctor of agriculture in 1932. In the early days of her career she spent her time teaching science. In 1920, she became a scientific researcher at Hokkaido Imperial University where she began to analyse the nutritional properties of Japanese silkworms.

Later, Tsujimara went to Tokyo Imperial University to begin researching the biochemistry of green tea alongside Umetaro Suzuki. Their joint research revealed that green tea contained significant amounts of vitamin C. In 1929, she was able to isolate a bitter ingredient of tea called catechin, and later she was also able to isolate an even bitter compound tannin.

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These years of research formed the main crux of her doctoral thesis, “On the Chemical Components of Green Tea” when Tsujimara graduated as Japan's first woman doctor of agriculture in 1932.

Tsujimara went on to become the first Dean of the Faculty of Home Economics at Tokyo Women's Higher Normal School in 1950. A stone memorial in honour of her achievements can be found in Okegawa City.

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Just earlier this month, Google Doodle paid homage to Tim Bergling, popularly known as Avicii — the Swedish musician known for his tremendous contribution to EDM. A special video doodle was created to celebrate the musician's 32nd birth anniversary on September 8, and was set to one of Avicii's most popular hits, "Wake Me Up”.

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