The invention discloses a method for one-step synthesis of fluorescent carbon dots with tea leaves as a carbon source and application of the fluorescent carbon dots, and relates to the technical field of carbon dot synthesis, the technical key point is that the method specifically comprises the following steps: S1, carbon source pretreatment: Tieguanyin tea residues and green tea residues are cleaned, dried and prepared into powder; s2, carbon dot synthesis: weighing 0.3000 g of Tieguanyin tea residue powder and 0.3000 g of green tea residue powder, respectively pouring the Tieguanyin tea residue powder and the green tea residue powder into different polytetrafluoroethylene high-pressure reaction kettles, adding distilled water, and putting the polytetrafluoroethylene high-pressure reaction kettles into a constant-temperature blast drying box for a synthesis reaction. The green tea and the Tieguanyin tea are used as raw materials, the fluorescent carbon dots are synthesized through a one-step hydrothermal method, by optimizing the optimal temperature and time for preparing the carbon dots, the synthesized carbon dots have pH dependence and meanwhile show good fluorescence performance, photobleaching resistance, salt resistance and water solubility, the synthesis process is simple, consumed time is short, and the raw materials are low in price and easy to obtain; in addition, the method can be applied to research and development, preparation, fluorescence analysis and biological marking of novel fluorescent carbon nanomaterials.