After tea seedlings are planted in the soil, they usually take two to three years before they can be harvested. Once mature, tea plants can live for over 60 years, but overharvesting can shorten their lifespan to around 8 years. After 8 years, they may be removed and replanted with new seedlings due to the inability to maintain economic yields. In Taiwan, if tea is harvested more than eight times a year using machines, it is considered overharvested.
Tea plants, like humans, need adequate rest time, or they may succumb to exhaustion… Additionally, most tea plants are propagated asexually, so when planted in soil, they only develop fibrous roots and not a taproot (only tea trees propagated from seeds have taproots). Tea plants without taproots are unable to effectively anchor the soil and are susceptible to natural disasters such as landslides.
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