How to grow tea

In the first weeks of the season, clear the weeds from the strip under and between the bushes while they are still small. Hand-pull them, or hoe shallowly — tea's feeding roots sit right under the surface, so digging deep near a bush tears them and sets the flush back.

Lay a thick mulch of grass, prunings or leaf litter over the cleared strip — about 20 cm deep, one hand-span of loose material — but keep it a little clear of the main stems so they don't rot. Mulch holds moisture, smothers new weeds, keeps the soil cool, and feeds it as it breaks down.

Never put lime, wood ash or any 'sweetener' on tea. Tea only grows on sour (acid) soil — about pH 4.5–5.5 — and liming slowly un-sours the soil and kills the bush. This is the one mistake you cannot undo.

As you work, check the base of the bushes for termites: thin tubes of dried mud creeping up the stems, and any bush that yellows, wilts and lifts loose when you tug it — a sign termites are eating the collar (where the stem meets the soil) and roots. Keep bushes watered and mulched (termites strike hardest in drought); dig out and burn any bush that is badly eaten.

Pluck when a new shoot carries a plump bud with two soft young leaves above the older, darker leaves. That tender tip — 'two leaves and a bud' — is exactly what you take, nothing coarser.

Nip or snap off just that soft top with your fingers, level with the flat top of the table. Leave the tougher, darker 'maintenance' leaves below — they are the bush's food factory and drive the next flush; strip them and you starve the next round.

Drop the shoots loosely into an open basket on your back or hip. Never pack them tight or into a plastic bag — squeezed leaf heats up and spoils before it reaches the factory.

Go over the whole table every 7–14 days — quicker in warm, wet flush, a little slower when growth is slow. Miss the window and the tender shoots grow out and stop flushing — coarse, dormant tips the trade calls banjhi (overgrown shoots with no soft bud, that have gone to sleep) — and these make poor, low-grade tea.

If a round does slip and the flush has gone coarse and banjhi, pluck or tip that coarse growth off anyway to bring the table back level — take the low-grade leaf even though it earns little, so the bush is forced to push soft new flush again; don't leave the coarse shoots standing or the whole table stalls.

Keep the top of the table flat and level as you pluck — tip back any shoot that stands up above the surface, so it stays even and easy to pluck next round.

Split the year's nitrogen across at least 3–4 feeds (roughly every 2–3 months), timed to the flush. Feed after a plucking round, not before, so the bush spends it on the next flush. Your recommendation gives the amount for your field.

On an established, close-planted hedge the roots have filled the whole row, so broadcast the fertiliser evenly over the soil under the full spread of the bushes — right across the shaded strip where the feeding roots reach — not piled against the main stem and not on top of the plucking table.

Apply onto moist soil — after rain, or into the mulch — so it dissolves down to the roots. On dry soil much of the nitrogen gasses off into the air and is wasted.

Tea fertiliser is usually a compound that carries nitrogen together with some potassium (K) — both are drawn off in the plucked leaf — and often zinc (Zn). Zinc works best fed as a foliar spray (sprayed straight onto the leaves), not through the soil; follow your recommendation.

Never lime and never use wood ash — tea must stay sour. Keep the grains off the wet plucking leaves (they scorch the leaf), well away from streams and children, and wash your hands afterwards.

Every 3–4 days, walk a big 'W' across the field so you cover the corners and the middle, and look closely at the young flush, the leaf undersides, and any weak or off-colour bushes.

Red spider mite: in hot, dry, dusty weather, look for mature leaves turning a rusty bronze along the midrib and upper surface, with a fine, dusty look. Tip a leaf to the light and you'll see tiny reddish mites moving. It is worst on dusty roadside rows and drought-stressed bushes.

Helopeltis (tea mosquito bug): on the bud and top two leaves, look for dark brown-black sunken spots and streaks, and shoots that bend, scar and die back. The bug itself is slender and mosquito-like — long legs, and a little pin standing up on its back — and it feeds on exactly the shoot you pluck.

Armillaria root rot: look for bushes that yellow, wilt and die in a spreading patch — often where an old tree stump was left in the ground. Scrape the collar (where the stem meets the soil) of a dying bush: white, fan-shaped fungal sheets under the bark and black, bootlace-like strands on the roots confirm it.

Note what you see and where. Rising mite or helopeltis on the flush means act now — open the matching pest guide. For a spreading patch of dying bushes, dig out and burn the whole bush with its roots and old stump, and trench around the patch to stop it spreading.

Prune every 3–4 years, in the cool, slow-growth lull — not in peak flush — so the bush has time to recover before the next flushing season.

How far down you cut depends on the job. A hard prune cuts the old wood right back low — down to about 45–60 cm, roughly knee height — to fully rejuvenate a tired bush; you then let it re-grow and build the tall waist-high (0.9–1.2 m) plucking table back up from the fresh shoots, so don't stop the cut at waist height thinking that is the prune. A light skiff only shaves the top few centimetres off to level the table. Your plan says which this bush needs.

Use a clean, sharp blade and make slanting cuts so rain runs straight off. Ragged, torn cuts and blunt blades let dieback and collar rot — rot at the collar, where the stem meets the soil — in through the fresh wood.

Spread the prunings back under the bushes as mulch — they hold moisture and feed the soil while the bush regrows.

Let the bush re-grow and build a fresh table before you pluck it hard again — plucking the tender new shoots too soon starves the recovering bush and undoes the prune.

Keep the plucked leaf loose, cool and shaded from the moment it leaves the bush — an open basket, never a tight sack or plastic bag that traps the heat.

Don't sit on, press down or overfill the leaf — crushed leaf bruises, reddens and heats up.

Get each round to the collection point or factory within a few hours of plucking — the same day, as fast as you can.

If you must wait for transport, spread the leaf thin, in the shade, with air moving through it — never heaped in a warm pile.