A Guide to Tea Harvests

Like all agricultural products (and most life generally), tea follows the cycles of the seasons, lying dormant during cold seasons while growing in warmer ones.

What makes tea plants unusual is how frequently it could be harvested, which under ideal conditions, is every ten days. Of course, there is a cold season for most tea-growing regions, so tea plants are normally harvested 6–7 times per year.

However, that's not the whole story. Tea plants take 3–5 years to mature enough to withstand harvesting. Plucking all the leaves off a young tea plant would kill it. However, once established, the plant becomes exceptionally productive.

Every successive harvest carries the same basic logic: the first one is the most coveted, followed by the second, and so on. After a winter period, the tea plant is at its most nutrient-dense because it’s been lying dormant conserving energy. Hence, in the first harvest of the year, the buds and leaves being plucked have the most flavor and aromatic potential. 

Tea cultures around the world recognized this long before there was science to back it up. The names they gave these harvests reflect centuries of close attention to the land.

One of the most common known terms for harvests in the west is a "flush." This terminology originated in India and Nepal.

• First Flush (March–April)
• Second Flush (May–June)
• Monsoon Flush (July–August)
• Autumnal Flush (October–November)

China's tea-growing regions span enormous geographic diversity, so harvest calendars vary widely depending on elevation, latitude, and climate. But two harvest windows have achieved near-universal recognition, and both are defined by their relationship to a single date on the lunar calendar.

Qing Ming (清明) is a traditional festival honoring ancestors and welcoming spring. It falls on April 4–6. The two most sought-after Chinese harvests are named in relation to it:

• Ming Qian (明前) — literally "before Qing Ming." Tea harvested before April 4–6. The window is narrow, the yields are small, and the resulting tea is exceptionally tender. It commands some of the highest prices of any tea harvested anywhere in the world.
• Yu Qian (雨前) — literally "before the rain." This refers to Grain Rain, a solar term that falls on April 20. Tea harvested between Qing Ming and Grain Rain is still highly regarded, and in many regions it's the more accessible expression of a spring harvest.
  
  Tea harvested during this period is referred to as "Pre-Qing Ming"which distinguishes it as higher quality. This term is most applicable for Longjing and other premium green tea, and less useful for black and oolong tea. But it's also important to note that not all first harvest tea is Pre-Qing Ming
  
  There is so much more nuance to the topic of Chinese tea harvests. If you want to learn more, I would recommend the article: "Understanding China's Tea Harvests"by Tony Gebely.

Japan also has varying harvest times but generally can be divided into four distinct harvesting periods:

• Shincha / Ichibancha (一番茶) — "new tea" / "first tea." April to May. Shincha technically refers to the very first tea of the year, released fresh without the long storage typical of most Japanese green tea. It's intensely seasonal and available only briefly. Ichibancha is the broader category of first harvest. High quality matcha and sencha will almost always come from this harvest as well as our Kabuse Houjichawhich is made from the stems of the Ichibancha.
• Nibancha (二番茶) — "second tea." June through the end of July.
• Sanbancha (三番茶) — "third tea." August. Later harvests are common in Houjicha such as our Kyobancha Nakai and Houji Powder Hugo.
• Yonbancha (四番茶) — "fourth tea." As late as October.

There are of course more tea-growing countries than covered here — but these are the ones we've sourced from recently. Like everything in tea, harvest rules are rarely hard and fast. What matters is knowing how to sift the wheat from the chaff when marketing mystique gets thrown around

Author: Max McPartland

Sources
Tony Gebely - Tea Epicure
Sugi Moto Tea - Japanese Tea