Michiyo Tsujimura

Michiyo Tsujimura (1888-1969) was a Japanese biochemist and the second Japanese woman to earn a doctorate in science, awarded by Tokyo Imperial University in 1932 for research on the chemical composition of green tea. Her work isolated and characterized the vitamin C content of green tea and identified and named catechin, a class of tea polyphenol compounds now recognized for their antioxidant properties, establishing much of the early chemical understanding of tea's nutritional and flavor components. She spent most of her career at Tokyo Women's Higher Normal School, later Ochanomizu University, and continued research on tea chemistry and plant biochemistry for decades. Her research helped found the scientific study of tea chemistry as a distinct field in Japan.