Abstract: Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), as an efficient, accurate, non-destructive and rapid detection technology, has a great advantage in tea production, processing and quality management areas. This paper introduced the working principle to near infrared spectroscopy and its comparison with traditional physical and chemical detection technology of tea. The important applications and research progress of this technology in tea quality management were summarized including classification of fresh tea leaves, monitoring of tea processing, intelligent evaluation of tea quality, rapid detection and quantitative analysis of tea components, identification of illegal additives in tea. The further research and application were also analyzed and aimed at promoting the application of the technology in standardization processing of tea, intelligent recognition of tea quelity and geographical origin field better and faster.