Two Leaves and a Bud: The Plucking Standard

Every tin we ship begins with the same instruction, given at first light: two leaves and a bud. Not three. Not the coarse fourth leaf that grows heavy in the monsoon. Two leaves and the unopened bud — the sweetest, most aromatic part of the shoot. A skilled plucker moves down the row reading the bush like a page, snapping each shoot cleanly at the stalk. Our most experienced hands bring in eight kilograms of fine leaf a day; a machine harvester takes sixty kilograms of everything, indiscriminately. You can taste the difference as clarity. Fine-plucked orthodox leaf brews a cup with a beginning, a middle and a finish. Coarse leaf brews a monologue.