Tea-n-age

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-agri-biz-and-commodity/tea-body-identifies-alternative-crops/article1649542.ece Jatropha plants can be used as shade tree in tea gardens. Rubber and tea plants can co-exist without interfering each other.  Cultivation of various species of herbs in the non-tea areas of tea garden. KolkataFeb. 14 Responding to the West Bengal Government's request for examining the scope of crop diversification in tea gardens, the Tea Association of India (TAI), having membership of about 200 tea companies with gardens in Assam and northern part of West Bengal, has identified alternative crops such as jatropha, rubber, medicinal herbs, black pepper and mushrooms which can be produced in tea garden areas. Diversification In a statement submitted to the authorities concerned in the State Government, the TAI, however, has made it clear that the success of crop diversification programme will depend on various factors such as area to...

http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/sc/1212/sakuma_tea.html by Bill Thorness Richard Sakuma’s hand grazes the new growth as he reaches out over a tea plant. With a quick twist he nips the tips off a branch and eyes the light-green flush on the next one. He’s demonstrating the one-handed pluck, pinching the most recent growth shoot — just two leaves and a bud — and bending it until the stem breaks. A new shoot will emerge at the leaf node below the break, and the Pacific Northwest’s first and only tea operation will continue to grow. The third-generation Skagit Valley farmer, whose well-known family has been growing berries since the 1930s, is taken with tea. Now more than a dozen years into his experiment to bring locally grown tea to Northwesterners, Sakuma has learned many of the processes, from picking to oxidizing, and hopes his evolving understanding of tea cultivation — and the productivity of his small acreage of Camellia sinensis — will attract local growers and tea af...