What is aracha (荒茶)? Most websites out there are calling it raw tea or crude tea (with all the endless connotations). More specifically, it is tea leaves after it comes out of the processing plant (at a farm or near a farming region) and before it goes onto the commodity market for tea leaves. We’re calling it farmers’ tea. What happens to the tea leaves after they are sold into the commodity market? Wholesale brokers often buy it from various farms and sell them together to tea companies. The tea companies may then take the leaves through a second processing to separate the leafy and stem portions of the leaf, [...]