Green Tea in Natural Farming

Natural farming is a philosophy and farming method suggested by Masanobu Fukuoka.  It is a way of doing less and letting nature take care of the farm.  Cultivating, weeding, fertilizers, and pruning all become unnecessary when nature truly takes control.

Farms maintained in such a way often look rather messy and unmaintained to some untrained eyes, but they have order within chaos.

Tea plants originates in subtropical mountains of China and India where people harvest tea during spring and summer month.  Modern farming and high nitrogen fertilizer allow tea leaves to continuously grow throughout the year and tea farmers to harvest.  Some tea farmers proudly say how high their yields are and how often they can harvest.  

Tea in a natural state goes through simple growth cycle.  Vegetative growth during spring and summer, followed by flowering in fall and seeds emerge in late fall.  Eventually with cold weather setting in, plants slows down their activities or even go dormant during winter months.

If we truly follow this natural cycle with very little fertilizer, yield is substantially low.  Natural farmers are often rewarded with very small harvest of pure and clean tea.