Plucking and harvesting
Next time you serve tea, impress your neophyte guests by explaining that the quality of tea depends on knowing which leaves to pluck, how and when to do it. The mechanical CTC – crush, tear and curl – method is a barbarian affair. Hand-plucking is the only way to produce unbruised whole leaves. But there are different standards for hand-plucking. For black and green teas, pickers delicately pinch or cut the bud aka pekoe – white down in Chinese – or the bud with one immediate young leaf. This is known as “imperial plucking”. In the old days in China, only gentle virgins with the most delicate fingers were allowed to pick the precious buds and tiny leaves. These tastiest treasures were reserved for the emperor.
"Fine plucking" includes the ravishing pekoe with two immediate young leaves. “Classic plucking” means the lovely pekoe with three young leaves. “Rough plucking”, often done with shears, means taking some leaves after the bud. The lower down on the branch, the thicker the leaves, and the less precious your beverage will be.
For oolong teas, the pekoe along with three or four leaves, are plucked.
Tea is harvested all year round, but different seasons bring different flavours. Spring harvests yield light, flowery, fresh and delicate tea, that will turn your taste buds topsy-turvy. Summer teas are full-bodied, and their liquor sports deeper colours. Your taste buds will fall for their intense flavour notes. Autumn teas are not generally rated but teas harvested in winter will have both coolness and freshness of spring tea and a great flavour appreciated by connoisseurs.
When speaking of Indian teas, avoid the word harvest, only used by Philistines. With a knowing look, use flush and emotionally recall the most sublime first flush savoured in the misty heights of Darjeeling. There, the first flush happens at the end of March and beginning of April. It yields the best of the rarest tea. The second flush corresponds to late spring or early summer, just before the monsoon.
In Assam, both first and second flush is harvested in the same season, the first one in early spring and the second one in late spring.
Tea gurus reckon that for green tea, the first flush is the best. The same goes for white and oolong teas. In Japan it is called Shincha – new tea –, or Ichiban-cha – first flush tea of the year. It is harvested from mid-April to early May. Bancha is used for all non-Shincha and non-Ichiban-cha harvests. In China, Pre-Qing Ming teas, harvested before the Qing Ming festival – late March or early April – are the absolute must-haves.
