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Women harvest tea at the Kayu Aro tea plantation in western Sumatra, Indonesia, where a skilled worker can collect 220 pounds a day and made about 75,000 rupiah (US $5.00) when this photograph was taken. Planted in the rich soils on the slopes of 12,400-foot Mount Kerinci, the highest volcano in Indonesia, Kayu Aro is one of the oldest tea estates in the country, with tea bushes planted during the Dutch colonial era in the 1920s that are still producing. Hand harvesters like these will cut the high-quality teas with shears and pick the best young leaf buds individually, but they are rapidly being replaced by machines. A crew of five workers operating a mechanical harvester can collect 2.2 tons of tea leaves a day.

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STNMTZ_20220712_37464.TIF
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©2022 George Steinmetz
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Women harvest tea at the Kayu Aro tea plantation in western Sumatra, Indonesia, where a skilled worker can collect 220 pounds a day and made about 75,000 rupiah (US $5.00) when this photograph was taken. Planted in the rich soils on the slopes of 12,400-foot Mount Kerinci, the highest volcano in Indonesia, Kayu Aro is one of the oldest tea estates in the country, with tea bushes planted during the Dutch colonial era in the 1920s that are still producing. Hand harvesters like these will cut the high-quality teas with shears and pick the best young leaf buds individually, but they are rapidly being replaced by machines. A crew of five workers operating a mechanical harvester can collect 2.2 tons of tea leaves a day.

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