Rain during harvest season of tea is not welcomed

Quality of tea varies every year because of weather and climate. It is just like wine. In particular, rain conditions have a vast effect on the quality of tea. The quality of tea drops when there is a lot of rain during the harvest season.

Agricultural products harvested on rainy days give very light and flat taste

Tea plucked on a rainy day gives a very light aftertaste and less complexity on the palate. This does not apply only to tea, but also to many kinds of fruit. My parents grow apples in Japan. I have never seen them plucking apples on a rainy day. Apples plucked on rainy days are very light and flat in taste. Some people describe it as “tasting like water”. The same concept applies to strawberries, blueberries or cherries. Any fruit planted outdoors gives a flat taste if harvested on a rainy day. During rainy days or just after rain, even birds do not eat those fruits.

It takes 3 days to recover the taste once rain falls.

Every spring I stay in Yunnan to procure pu-erh tea, white tea and black tea. We stay close to the manufacturer in order to manage the material, process and logistics. Usually, experienced manufacturers never collect tea for the next 2 days after a rainy day. We are also there to make sure that our tea is not collected within 3 days after the rain. For example, if it rains today and is followed by a sunny day, we do not collect tea tomorrow or the day after. It is very obvious that the taste of tea becomes very flat and the aftertaste is missing. However, some farmers or manufacturers rush to pluck tea rather than waiting for the tea leaves to grow too big. Most importantly, we only deal with manufacturers who can segregate batches according to daily production. This is how we can cross-check the quality of each batch of tea.

Tea grows very fast once rain falls

Rainfall is very important for tea trees to produce more leaves. However, for us, rainfall during the plucking season is undesirable. Once rain falls, tea starts growing fast. As a result, minerals and nutrients in tea leaves are diluted. Tea leaves plucked on a rainy day or soon after tend to be larger with longer stems. The distance between the 1st and 2nd leaves becomes wider, which shows how fast the tea is growing. Fast-growing tea produces cells with larger size. Eventually, the total content of polyphenols and minerals per leaf becomes lower, and this directly affects the taste. Like the light taste observed in fruits harvested on rainy days, tea harvested within 3 days after rain also gives a very light taste.