The Plant Properties of the Tea
The tea plant is a hundred years old and it gains the appearance of a tree when left in the nature to grow. The tea plant looks untidy in terms of appearance and it has types with single body and multiple bodies. It does not shed leaves and it is always green. It has leaves during summer and winter. The shoots emerge throughout the year at locations with sufficient level of temperature and humidity such as South India, Sri Lanka, Cava, Sumatra and Kenya.

The tea shoots emerge with intervals at locations where there are temperature and humidity differences between the seasons of the year, for example in the North and Northeast India, Northeast China, Japan, various cool regions of South Africa, our neighbor Georgia, along the Caspian coasts of Iran and in our country. At locations not suitable for continuous shoot emergence, it stops in cold seasons; the leaves and buds do not develop. In other words the tea plant enters its dormancy period during cold seasons. The rain must be plenty and the temperature must be enough for continuous shoot emergence of tea plant during the shooting period. Otherwise the plant will not provide the expected shoot efficiency, the development will regress significantly and the crop amount will be reduced at important rates.

Two leaves and one bud freshly picked from the shoot ends of tea plant are used for quality tea production. As a general rule, it is recommended and demanded to use two leaves and one bud picked from the shoot end for tea production. The reason for this is the fact that the polifenol amount is reduced when going from the young leaves towards the old leaves, in other words the characteristic substances that affect the leaf quality are accumulated in the young leaf and bud.

The good product is the first rule of quality and successful tea production. You cannot add quality to the product later if it does not contain it. Therefore we must consider all tea production stages together with the raw material as a whole.

ROOT

It has strong side roots emerging from the main root, and the side roots have hairy root closer to the soil surface. In some varieties the side roots can go deep in the soil like taproot. The weight of the roots that feed the plant is 5% times the general root weight. The cells of the roots thicker than 1-2mm contain plenty of starch. The pruned plant continues to develop thanks to the stored nutrients.

LEAVES

The evergreen leaves have short stem and the leaves become sharper towards the end like an egg. The edges of the mature leaves have few or many dents. Their heights are 3-35 cm depending on the varieties. After the first stage of the development, the leaves on the shoots that emerge after pruning are bigger. The surface of the tea leaf is smooth or convex, end is truncate or sharp (like peak), with various color tones from yellow and green to dark green. The old leaves feel like skin because of texture, their upper surfaces are bright and dark green.

SHOOTS

The shoots are formed from the wood eyes at the arm-pits of the mature leaves. The shoot eyes at the arm-pits of the leaves located at the upper sections of the branches that constitute the center of the tea are superior when compared to the shoot eyes below. But when the sprout developing at the upper section is picked, the growth superiority is immediately inherited by the bud that develops at the arm-pit of the leaf that is just below. There are various types of leaves on the shoots of a tea plant. These leaves have individual names.

A growing shoot is named like this:

Bud ( Flowery-Pekoe),
First Leaf (Orange – Pekoe), Second Leaf (Pekoe),
Third–Fourth Leaf (Sukong),
Fifth – Sixth Leaf (Kon)

But the development priority does not belong to a single sprout in scope of the pruned and end-picked tea plants; many bud eyes on the body and branches become activated. Generally, the shoot eyes below each picked sprout become activated. According to the studies it is found that during a season with plenty of rain, the picking maturity of a bud that develops at the arm-pit of the leaf (2.5-3.5 sprout) is reached within 42 days following the picking of the next sprout that is above. The growth is very slow during the first 28 days. The growth rate increases from the 28th day to 35th day, and it reaches maximum rate between 35th day and the 45th day. The end section of the shoot is green until the forth and fifth leaf but the lower sections are brown. The tea shoots demonstrate a visible dormancy period during their growth regardless of the environment and climate. A 5mm bud forms at the head of the shoot that enters the dormancy period, which is not as long and plump as the bud at the head of the shoot that continues its normal growth; this is called Banjihi dormancy bud.

It is surrounded by small leaves with two or three lines. When this bud is going to open at the end of the dormancy period, firstly the leaf at the exterior opens, this little leaf, which later looks like obtuse stipule with head, is called cataphyll. More than one grows. Afterwards the second external leaf of the bud opens and a second stipule that does not look like the first one grows, this leaf has no teeth at its edges, this is called Janam-Balık leaf. This leaf is also sometimes called as the leaf that gives birth. The bud begins its normal growing course and the normal leaves of the shoot are formed. Depending on the conditions of climate and care, the plant re-enters into the dormancy period when five normal leaves are formed in scope of the shoot, and banji is formed.

FLOWER

The bud starts to emerge at the end of a short stem at the arm-pits of the fully formed leaves at the beginning of August in our country. This bud develops more at the end of August or at the beginning of September; its stem becomes longer, opened, as a result of which white and magnificent flowers emerge. A fully formed flower contains 5-7 sepals and 5-7 petals. The flower assembly is helical. The anthers are 5 or more. The pistil is single and creates a 3-piece appearance. After the petals fall, it is always possible to see the small fruits downwards from the end of the flower stem. They begin to swell in the beginning of spring and gain bright green color in September. The fruits become mature in October and gain dirty green or reddish color, their ends split and seeds are revealed.

FRUIT

The fruits are three-eyed and have thick walls, they contain 3-6 seeds within. Although three seeds are normally required to be formed, the seed quantity may be reduced when the pieces within are atrophied. Sometimes an eye contains individual seeds of which one side is flat. The immature fruits are green; after maturing the fruits become brown at the size of hazelnut, normally with 12 mm of diameter. The seeds contain 20-30% of oil which contains saponin.

CLIMATE

The tea plant does not like cold weather, frost or wind. The locations where the temperature drops below zero degree and exceeds 40 degrees, and which have annual temperature average below 14 degrees, are not suitable for growing tea. The tea demands plenty of rain and the rain must exceed 1200 mm during the development period. The rain is desired to be slow and continuous. In addition to plenty of rain, humidity is very important for tea plant. The product needs high humidity to preserve its freshness. The humidity plays a significant role in quality and encourages the growth. The annual relative humidity average is preferred to be above 70%.

SOIL TYPE

The tea plant can grow with various types of acid-reactive soil (ph 5.5-6) including the sand and clay. It grows well in scope of deep soils with high permeability and rich plant nutrients. It does not grow at heavy and clayed locations with high, impermeable underground water.