From plant to cup – Page 42

The Sumela monastery

27 July 2010

In case you had of Turkey an image of a very hot country, I’d like to tone it down a bit. If tea enjoys being on these mountains lining the Black Sea, it’s exactly because here when you climb up a little, it’s much cooler and there are plenty of clouds and rain. “It rains all the time in Rize and if it doesn’t rain it snows !” have I often heard.

The Sumela monastery –whose picture can only be taken by patient people- is precisely located in the area where tea is grown. You can notice that nature looks close to the one found in the Alps. And these threads of fog remind me of the Himalayan foothills. So now you surely understand why tea enjoys it here !

The Sumela monastery

Tea is in the bag

23 July 2010

What a beautiful warm evening light illuminating these string bags filled with fresh tea leaves. This is happening in Dellawa (Sri Lanka). In a few minutes, these leaves will be taken to the top floor of the tea factory where they’ll undergo the first stage of processing: withering. A stage that can take up to 20 hours for this type of black tea and consists simply in remaining the leaves spread out in thin, long and well ventilated trays. Water will thereby be taken out of the fresh tea leaves.

Under the palm trees of Nantou, Dong Ding tea

20 July 2010

In Taiwan, in the Nantou region for example, well-known for its Wu Long teas (Dong Ding, etc.), the tall and spindly trunks of the palm trees contrast with the rows of tea plants and give the landscape a very graphic appearance.

I have to admit that this impression is emphasized by the fact that I have been a little disrespectful to the posers in the foreground by chopping their head off…

Cheerful plucker looking like a tea missionary

16 July 2010

On the Terai plain (area straddling Nepal and India), I’ve seen them use strange crosses to mark the height of tea plants. The cross is stuck into the ground and only the shoots growing above the horizontal bar are plucked. It makes this cheerful plucker look a bit like a tea missionary.

Green tea from a wide angle

6 July 2010

Of course, from a wide angle, it looks both a little easy and spectacular. Here, it extends the building, shortens the individuals and spreads tea just the way it is required. Spreading the leaves is in fact exactly what has to be done after plucking to avoid fermentation. All the leaves in the baskets are put together and spread into a thin layer just like this women wearing a white headdress has just done. And since green tea (a Bai Mao Hou, “Hairy White Monkey”, to be precise) is going to be made here, armfuls of tea leaves will soon be roasted in a big wok.

White tea withering

2 July 2010

White teas are one of the Fujian district’s (China) main specialties. The most well-known ones are named Bai Mu Dan (White Peony) and Yin Zhen (Silver Needles).
The manufacturing process of white tea is quite simple, as it can be summed up in two words: withering and firing.
Traditionally, white tea is withered in the open air, just like here on these large bamboo pans which have been placed according to the course of the sun. This procedure will last from 48 to 60 hours. It is thus better to take the colour of the sun in consideration before plucking the leaves, in order for the harvest not to be ruined by the rain!

Tea pluckers like wearing a cloth tube around their arm

25 June 2010

In different regions of the world, tea pluckers put on a wide cloth tube around their arm to protect their sleeve. A Camellia shrub proves to be quite tough and could easily widen a stitch of a fabric or simply tear a hole in it. This Chinese countryman I’m photographing unawares at work wouldn’t deny this.

A tea tree’s natural inclination

22 June 2010

Last Friday, I told you about a clever mechanical system developed to make tasks easier for tea pluckers working on steep grounds (see the article). But you may wonder why tea is cultivated on such abrupt fields. Let me tell you why: unlike rice, tea trees like keeping their feet dry and can only be produced on a very well drained area. An inclined ground is therefore ideal for their growth, as the rainwater runs away. In flat tea plantations, farmers must then install a draining system to keep bushes healthy. It would be as well to make the most of a natural environment, much simpler and less expensive!

On this photo taken on the very steep Namring Tea Estate near the Himalayan mountains, notice the tea trees’ difference of colours. On the foreground, the harvest has already been done, whereas in the background, the light-coloured young shoots have not yet been plucked.

A ski-tow for tea

18 June 2010

Tea can be difficult to transport when the ground slopes. I already talked to you about it a few weeks ago, I explained how the horse could be a precious help to transport tea in Nepal (see the article). For the men and women who work on the plantations, it can also be very difficult sometimes to haul up their baskets full of tea leaves. All the more so since the garden where the leaves are harvested and the building where they are then processed are not necessarily at the same height.

Some tea plantations have thus developed a mechanical system we could compare to a ski-tow, to transport the bags full of tea leaves. At Namring Tea Estates (India) for example, tea pluckers hang two or three bags at the end of a rope fixed onto a cable, which are then hauled up mechanically. A solution making tasks easier for men and gaining time as well.

In this photo, Mister Chaudhury and one of his assistants seem to be gazing at these sacks climbing unaided.