Tea processing terms can be confusing. What is plucking?
Plucking means to pick the tea. Each time they pick the leaves it is called a Flush.
For high quality teas two leaves and a bud are picked, typically twice a year during early spring and early summer or late spring. Autumn or winter pickings of tea flushes are much less common, though they occur when climate permits.
Picking is done by hand with a higher quality tea, or where labour costs are not prohibitive. Depending on the skill of the picker, hand-picking is performed by pulling the flush with a snap of the forearm, arm, or even the shoulders, with the picker grasping the tea shoot using the thumb and forefinger, with the middle finger sometimes used in combination.
Tea flushes and leaves can also be picked by machine, though there will be more broken leaves and partial flushes reducing the quality of the tea. However, it has also been shown that machine plucking in correctly timed harvesting periods can produce good leaves for the production of high quality teas.
This content has been adapted from the book Your Path of Tea for Health of Body, Mind and Spirit by the late Thia McKann, Tea Master and Owner of The Path of Tea.