Harvesting tea

Tea is cultivated solely for the purpose of leaves. They are collected as many times per year as tea plant vegetates, i.e. produces new shoots with leaves.

Tea plants must reach an age of three years before leaves can be harvested for tea use. Tea is harvested several times a year; in spring, towards the end of summer and in autumn.

Harvesting is still done by hand since machinery can damage the tender leaves. Not all leaves are picked during harvesting but only a few top young and juicy leaves with a portion of the stem on which they have grown and the so-called bud (or tip) – an unexpanded leaf at the end of the shoot.

Tea pickers need not only adeptness but also perfect timing. Picking too early results in low yields, and picking too late impacts negatively on the quality. Ideally, the leaves should be harvested when they have grown three to five buds and have reached the right size.

A few leaves, part of the stem and a tip are called "flush". Flush is the basis of tea production. Flush with two or three leaves is called "golden flush". Flushes are collected with three, four and even five leaves.

Tea harvesters work by hand to remove the tea leaves and place them in large wicker baskets. Once the baskets are full, they are transported to a tea processing plant on the tea plantation. Once the leaves are plucked, they are spread in a thin layer on a tray and then left to dry in the sun.
Harvesting tea

Yellow tea

The many varieties of tea include white, yellow, green, oolong, black, and postfermented teas (such as pu-er).

Yellow tea refers to a type of tea processed similarly to green tea, but for yellow tea, the drying phase is slower and the damp leaves are allowed to sit and yellow. Yellow tea is traditionally made with leaf buds plucked in early spring. The buds are processed like Chinese green teas through the pan-firing step, or they are treated to a gentle heating method known as men huan or “sealing yellow”.

This is the rarest class of tea by far, difficult to source because the harvest time is short, and the processing is complex and time-consuming. Yellow tea originated in the Anhui an Hupei Provinces.

Although it might be the smallest category of tea based on to production volume, there are written records showing that yellow tea may have been produced as early as the Tang dynasty (618-907).
Yellow tea