The Business of Tea

Next time you get in your comfortable car and drive to your local tea shop for your favorite oolong, think about all the hands involved in bringing this wonderful beverage to you. It was grown on plantations under the watchful care of the growers until harvest time. The progression continues as it is picked, processed, packed, and shipped by air or sea to a broker or wholesaler who sold it to your tea shop.

Some of the details of that process have remained the same since ancient times. Fine quality tea is still hand picked. The leaves are picked as they are budding. The first two leaves and a bud are placed in a large basket that the picker carries on her back. In these days of “equal opportunity” most tea pickers are still women. The leaves are then spread on a flat surface to dry, shaken to be bruised and oxidized and then roasted.

Imagine that you had to wait from picking time to drinking time for a camel caravan to bring it across the Silk Road of Asia or the Ancient Tea and Horse Caravan Road of Southwest China, the first main trade routes for tea. We can thank the first tea traders that traveled those routes for the current success the tea industry is experiencing today.

This is where modernization takes over. The pan-roasted leaves used to be put in canvas cloth and rolled by hand. There are now machines that do the rolling. This is an abridged version of how tea gets from the plantation to your cup, but it gives you an idea of the steps involved and all of the hands and businesses that are involved.

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