To investigate how tea response to Empoasca vitis infection, we used ultra performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry(UPLC-QTOF-MS) to measure the profiles of 1094 metabolites in tea leaves at 0 h, 12 h and 24 h after infection. With principal component analysis(PCA), orthogonal partial least squares discrimination analysis(OPLS-DA), and fold change(FC), 6 metabolites were upregulated and 14 downregulated at 12 h comparing to 0 h, 26 metabolites were upregulated and 15 were downregulated at 24 h compared to 0 h, and 45 metabolites were upregulated and 14 were downregulated at 24 h compared to 12 h. Two differential metabolites in phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway with sinapic acid related to lignin formation at 0 h and 12 h were annotated to KEGG database . Six differential metabolites whose phenylacetaldehyde and gallocatechin were annotated to phenylalanine metabolic pathway and biosynthesis of flavonoids, respectively at 0 h and 24 h were also annotated to KEGG database. It was speculated that the fragrance of phenylacetaldehyde would affect the behavior or physiology of Empoasca vitis Gothe. There were 9 differential metabolites at 12 h and 24 h annotated to 9 metabolic pathways, and loganic acid annotated to monoterpenoid biosynthesis pathway. Compared with 12 h, the increase of loganic acidin in 24 h indicated that tea plants might release terpenoids to resist the Empoasca vitis Gothe. The results indicated that lignin, terpenoids, and flavonoids played important roles in the response to Empoasca vitis infection.