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Cultivation & harvest

A tropical or subtropical climate and fertile soil are needed to grow tea successfully. The crop is normally cultivated in hillside plantations, with the altitude having a considerable bearing on quality.

Cultivation

The higher tea is grown, the better the quality. China and India are the world’s main tea-growing countries, together accounting for about half of global production.
Harvesting can begin once the tea plant is about four years old. The leaves are normally picked by hand, making the harvest an extremely labour-intensive process. Tea can be harvested at any time of year, but leaves are at their best in the dry monsoon season.

The harvest

Tea shrubs can first be harvested when they are four years old. The manual harvest of the leaves requires intensive work. In some regions where labour force is deficient the traditional manual work is replaced by machines, but the quality of the tea harvested in this way can decrease essentially.
Tea harvesting has three techniques: the standard harvest, when two leaves and one bud are picked, the medium harvest (three leaves and a bud) and the raw harvest (four leaves and one bud on a stem). The finer the harvest is, the better the tea will be. On the higher located plantations, otherwise with better conditions for cultivating quality tea, fine harvest is exclusive.
Tea shrubs live long. Assamica reaches 40 years on average, while Sinensis can crop for as long as 100 years.

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