Michiyo Tsujimura's 133rd birth anniversary: Know all about the star of today’s Google doodle

Michiyo Tsujimura was a Japanese agriculture scientist known for her pioneering research on the health properties of green tea. She was the first woman in Japan to receive a doctoral degree in agriculture.

Today (September 17, 2021), Google, through its doodle, is paying tribute to Michiyo Tsujimura, a Japanese agriculture scientist, on the occassion of her 133rd birth anniversary.  Tsujimura was the first woman in Japan to receive a doctoral degree in agriculture and her research focused on the health properties of green tea, a beverage that has grown in popularity in today's fitness-conscious world.

Tea scientist Michiyo Tsujimura was born in 1888 in Okegawa in Saitama Prefecture of Japan. A female scientist in the 19th century was not a common occurence and Tsujimura had her own shares of struggle in her professional journey. She started her career as an unpaid laboratory assistant at Hokkaido Imperial University at a time when the university did not even accept female students.

After a few years later, Tsujimura joined the Tokyo Imperial University and along with Dr Umetaro Suzuki, who is famous for his discovery of vitamin B1, she began researching the biochemistry of green tea. They found out that green tea contained significant amounts of vitamin C - this was the first of many yet unknown molecular compounds in green tea that awaited under the microscope.