There are three regular pickings in the course of a year. The first known as the _Shon-cheun_ or “Early spring,” occurring about the middle of April or beginning of May, according to the district, the product of which is termed _Taou-cha_ or “head tea,” a very superior kind, consisting of the youngest, tenderest, and most delicate leaves and leaf-buds just expanding. The quantity obtained from this picking is limited in quantity but simply superb in quality, the very finest teas known to commerce, being prepared from them. The leaves are selected with the greatest care and picked with the utmost caution, such pains being taken to insure its excellence that for weeks before the harvest commences, the packers, who have been previously trained are prohibited from eating fish or other food considered unclean, lest by their breath they should contaminate the leaves, being also compelled to bathe two or three times daily in the picking season, as well as wear gloves during the operation. The second picking, called _Er-chuen_ or “Second spring,” takes place between the end of May and beginning of June, when the branches are literally covered with leaves, and yielding what is known in China as _Tzu-cha_ or “filial tea,” from the fact of its producing the largest quantity, constituting the most important crop of the season and forming the principal one exported, but being greatly inferior to the first in point of quality. The _San-chuen_, or “third crop,” is gathered in July when the shrubs are searched for leaves, and the product converted into what is termed _Wu-kua-cha_ or “tea without aroma,” and though still more inferior to the preceding ones in quality and quantity, is nevertheless an important one commercially, forming the bulk of that exported as well as for blending with and reducing the cost of the preceding crop. A few leaves of the first picking will support five successive immersions, yielding five cups of moderately strong tea; the second supplying only two and the third but one of the same strength to a like quantity.