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April 5-7, 2014
Mike has arrived in Nilgiris, India, at Vijayalakshmi Natural Farm.
Vijayalakshmi Natural Farm is Teaneer Tea's family-owned tea garden. They value a harmonious relationship with nature, harvesting according to natural cycles. Last year, we carried some of their hand-crafted green tea, and we hope to source more from them this year.
Here are some pictures of the tea processing at the farm. We will be adding more pictures as we receive more information from Mike in the fields. |
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Growing
Tea is very sensitive to variables in the growing environment, including the amount of sunlight and the amount of rainfall.
Here, Teaneer has a batch of tea plants undergoing a shading experiment. Shading the tea plants tends to the amount of theanine in the leaves, which makes them sweeter.
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Harvesting
Hand-plucked tea is usually high-grade, with full, unbroken leaves and buds. Machine processing tends to break the leaves, which makes them bitter.
Teaneer is using the two leaves, one bud plucking standard here. They harvest during the daytime to maximize the strength of the leaves.
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Sun Drying + Hand-rolling
Dehydrating the leaves makes them ready for further processing.
Teaneer uses a sun-drying method. They are also hand-rolling the tea, which is best to preserve the tender, high-grade leaves and buds.
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Pan-Firing
Pan-firing is another. typical processing method for green tea. It is a common method in China and India, while the steaming method is more common in Japan.
Teaneer tosses the tea by hand in iron woks, using tea oil over heat.
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Tasting
A completed tea! Some teas take more processing than others, but here is a finished yellow tea.
Note the high-quality of the tea leaves. Thanks to Teaneer's careful hand-crafting, the buds and leaves remain fully intact, which preserves flavor and minimizes bitterness.
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We will be offering teas from Teaneer Tea in our 2014 Spring Catalog.
Mike is now en-route to North India, famous for its Assam and Darjeeling tea regions,
and Rajiv Lochan's Doke Tea in Bihar.
Elyse is now en-route to India after conquering weeks of visa issues!
Thank you for following the Amazing Tea Race: please stay tuned.
The Tealet Team
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