On October 17-20, 2018, Assoc.Prof. Irada Khalilova, Vice-Rector for Research and Acting Head of the Department of Biological Sciences attended, as an invited speaker, the First International Congress on Cocoa Coffee and Tea Asia 2018 (CoCoTea Asia-2018) in Hefei, China. This conference was organized by the State Key Laboratory Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, and Anhui Agricultural University of China.

The First International Congress on Cocoa Coffee and Tea Asia 2018 offered an inter-disciplinary opportunity for scientists to discuss different areas of Tea, Coffee, and Cocoa, and to report innovative scientific achievements in such areas like Biology, Chemistry, Technology, Metabolomics, Nutrition and Health, Quality & Safety Control. More than 100 international invited speakers attended the conference.

Assoc. Prof. Irada Khalilova delivered a presentation on “The Caucasian Tea: History, Culture and Research on Health Benefits”. The conference organized a training session, where the Cooperation agreement on scientific research projects between Anhui Agricultural University, China and Khazar University, Azerbaijan was signed by the Project Managers from both sides - Assoc.Prof. Jinbao Huang and Assoc. Prof. Irada Khalilova.

On the last day of the conference, the two countries – India (Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare of India) and Azerbaijan (Khazar University) were selected to host the Second International Congress on Cocoa Coffee and Tea Asia 2020. Representatives from both countries delivered a speech about their organizations. Assoc. Prof. Irada Khalilova delivered a welcome speech for hosting the next conference and talked about the important location of Azerbaijan for the whole Eurasian region and the experience of Khazar University, its strategic vision and important achievements.