You can tell when the tea leaves are ready for harvesting by the colour of the bushes. When the tea plants take on this yellow-green shade it means the new shoots have reached a good size and it is time to get out your basket and start plucking.
Here, you can see the difference in colour between the leaves that have not yet been harvested, in the background, and what remains on the plants after a visit from this Chinese woman, with her agile hands, in the foreground.