The Difference Between Tea Farmers' Homemade Tea and Tea Factory Brand Tea, and Why the Vast Majority of Tea Farmers Don't Make Their Own Tea

From childhood to adulthood, I watched the masters make tea together year after year, and under the influence of my family, I also grew to love drinking tea. I've tried every kind of tea, but my favorite is still white tea - light and elegant, with a long-lasting aftertaste. The editor really loves white tea, and hopes this article can also let everyone understand white tea and experience its wonderfulness. So here let's focus on what the differences are between tea factory brand tea and tea farmers' homemade tea, so everyone knows how to choose.

In recent years, with strong government promotion, the white tea market has been getting better and better, and more and more friends know about white tea and like white tea. But many unscrupulous tea merchants have also appeared; many people use the guise of being tea farmers to make tea lovers think they are getting authentic first-hand products, not only cost-effective but also genuine, while white tea produced by tea factories seems to have an extra middleman, so it is not as cost-effective as tea farmers'. In fact, this is all misleading. Real tea farmers actually very rarely make tea themselves; they mainly grow tea for a living. When the tea-picking season comes, they sell the freshly picked tea leaves directly to tea factories according to grade, and the tea factories handle production and sales in a unified way. Tea factories are the first-hand authentic source, not middlemen. It's just like farmers growing grain - they won't make it into food themselves and then sell it. So many who say they are tea farmers are actually not tea farmers at all, but just tea merchants!

Why do the vast majority of tea farmers choose not to make tea themselves? The reasons are as follows:

1. They have no tea-making skills. When it comes to growing tea, they are experts, but they simply do not understand tea-making techniques; they only know the general process, and are completely unclear on the details.

2. They lack the space, labor, equipment, and other hardware conditions. Tea farmers basically operate as households, with their own land, their own tea trees, and their own tea gardens. The whole family is responsible for growing their own tea well, and they do not have the hardware foundation needed for making tea.

3. Even the very small number of tea farmers who can make tea still worry about sales after making it. Tea factories almost all have sales channels accumulated over many years of operation, such as major wholesalers in various provinces and cities, physical tea shop owners, and so on, while tea farmers do not have these. If the tea they worked hard to make cannot be sold, what then?

Having said this, some friends will surely want to ask: if the vast majority of tea farmers do not make tea themselves, aren't there still a very small number of tea farmers who do? Whose tea is better, theirs or the tea factories'?

Then let the editor give you a detailed analysis: what are the differences between tea factory brand tea and tea farmers' homemade tea?

1. Quality

Although the production process of white tea only involves withering and drying, grasping the details is not simple. For example, the thickness of the tea leaves when spread out for airing, and the control of sunlight intensity during outdoor withering - when the sunlight is strong, it must be moved back indoors, and when the sunlight is suitable, it is moved out again. Then there is the control of temperature during the final roasting, and the moisture content of the finished tea must be less than 8.5%, among other details. Tea factories have strict management systems, relevant equipment testing, and sufficient staffing, but tea farmers making tea themselves find it very hard to be strictly precise, and the quality of the finished product is very unstable. Every item of tea factory brand tea has a dedicated person responsible. For example, the old masters who make tea are all masters from former state-owned old factories and are very experienced. At that time, the old state-owned factories mainly exported to Europe, America, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia, and had very high requirements for the quality of finished tea. These old masters all have sharp eyes and are extremely strict about quality requirements. So brand tea quality is very stable and very guaranteed.

2. Hygiene

Masters at professional tea factories are all equipped with work uniforms, and there are strict rules and regulations. The government also conducts regular supervision and inspection, and hygiene conditions must meet standards. As for tea farmers, no one manages them, and everything depends entirely on self-restraint. Hygiene conditions are worrying. As many friends have reported, tea bought from tea farmers sometimes even contains hair, broom bristles, and so on, all of which are very common problems.

3. Price

Tea factory brand tea, because of centralized purchasing, centralized production, and centralized management, is very efficient, so the cost is naturally relatively low. For tea of the same grade and same quality, the selling price will also be lower than tea farmers' homemade tea. It must be emphasized here that price comparison must be under the premise of the same grade and same quality. White tea sold on Taobao for just a few dozen yuan with free shipping does not even cover the production cost, and its quality cannot compare with regular products.

4. Authenticity

Now that white tea is booming, much out-of-town tea and similar tea fills the low-end market, and it is very chaotic. For example: selling Anji white tea as white tea, selling Moonlight White as Baihao Yinzhen, and so on. Regular tea factories do not dare to sell counterfeit products, as they would bear legal responsibility. It is hard to say with tea farmers' homemade tea, especially some aged white tea made to look old, which has caused countless friends to be deceived.