Tea Leaves
Much of the tea we drink is still plucked by hand to this day.
Pluckers are extremely dexterous and skilled at their craft. They pluck the new shoots, which consist of the first two leaves and the bud, with their thumb and forefinger and place these plucked shoots in wicker baskets on their backs. While they are harvesting this new growth (two leaves and a bud), they are using their other three fingers to trim away the unwanted leaves off of the stems to encourage new growth for the next plucking cycle or "flush".
The trees are kept at table height so the pickers can pick with good straight posture and so the plucking occurs on the top of the bush as leaf growth on the lower sections of the tree are generally not as fragrant.
The tea season is each March through November in rotations of 5-7 days as this is how long it takes for new growth to again appear on the plant.
For some appreciation of the laborious nature of tea picking, it takes 20,000 shoots to equal just 1 kilo of processed tea.