Hailstorm in Yunnan

There was a hailstorm around Jinghong/Nannuo/Youle on the 8th, too. It started as I was going back to my hotel from the factory at the base of Nannuo Shan. Two men from the factory had offered me a ride home, and they seemed more impressed by the hail than worried about the tea. They said (though I may not have understood) that it might knock off some of the older leaves though the buds would be ok...or maybe vice versa?

~j

Depending on the size of the hail stones and the length of the storm hail can be devastating for a tea crop. I have seen the results sometime in Africa where most of the leaf was stripped from bushes leaving bare twigs - regrowth can take 2-3 months. In the 80's in Kenya some of the MNCs unnsuccessfully but expensively tried cloud seeding and even a large acetylene gas powered cannon to shock clouds into dropping hail before they got to the tea fields.

Nigel at Teacraft