Tea picking in Hemshin

Tea picking in Hemshin, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

And this is the process of 'picking' the tea, which is cutting the young growth with shears, to form nicely rounded shrubs.

These women were at the level of the road (following the river along the valley floor), so we weer able to stop and 'meet' these women through our driver. However, the terrain in very steep and many of the houses and tea gardens are high up above the valley. As a result, there is a complex network of cables to transport the tea sacks (and provisions) from the high slopes down to the raod where they are picked up by van.
The sacks of young tea shoots are brought to one of the very many tea 'factories' to be sorted and dried and packed for consumption by the millions of people who drink tea (many times) every day.