If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you.
-William Ewart Gladstone, British 19th century Prime Minister
Chai Tea Cultivation
On
a cool morning in the mountains of China, a peasant tea plucker wakes
at sunrise to begin her daily task of harvesting tea. She is just one of
many pluckers who have gathered in the morning to begin the daily tea
harvest. A lingering morning haze protects the delicate leaves of
low-lying tea bushes that her experienced hands pass over with care.
Only the best quality leaves are acceptable for harvest.
For
good quality black or oolong teas, only the bud and the next two leaves
are plucked – a process known as "fine plucking," or the "orthodox
method." She wears a wide-brimmed hat to shield herself from the intense
sunlight. Harvesting is a labor intensive process requiring some skill
and our tea plucker moves along slowly and methodically. This is highly
repetitive work, but not overly-taxing and she may continue this work
until well after turning 60.
Harvesting
lower-quality teas means that more and coarser leaves are plucked as
well as the bud. This is known as coarse plucking. Sometimes additional,
mature leaves are plucked deliberately to prune the bushes, which enable nutrients to be absorbed by newer leaves.
This
is a sight that is familiar to many rural areas in India, China,
Africa, and other countries around the world where more than 3,000
varieties of tea are grown. It is best grown at higher altitudes, with
frequent, regular rain. Mild and misty mornings are beneficial because
they protect the bushes from the burning sun, enabling the plants to
develop more slowly. An average tea bush will typically produce about
3,000 tea leaves each year, which becomes approximately one pound of
ready-to-brew tea.
Our plucker carefully fills her baskets with the leaves. Once full, baskets are inspected for quality and dispatched to a tea processing factory. Different methods of processing raw tea leaves produce different tea varieties. As soon as they are picked, fresh green tea leaves begin to oxidize and wither if they are not dried. How that process is managed and controlled determines the type and nature of the tea produced.
Plucking
by hand is reserved for only high-quality teas these days; modern
technology harvests and processes most lower-quality teas now.
