16th April 2010

Williames Tea is pleased to announce that it has developed a mechanical hand held selective tea harvester (“STH”) which does not employ a cutting action, but simulates the hand plucking of tea. The STH key features include:-

• can be operated by 4 persons at speeds of up to 4.5km/hr;
• exhibits a high degree of selectivity in harvesting, namely selecting a high percentage of two leaves and a bud for high quality and valuable tea;
• has the ability to harvest without damaging the leaf or the immature next generation buds in the process of harvesting;
• variable height control of the harvesting head to prevent harvesting mature green leaves, that form the maintenance canopy, which if harvested degrade the tea quality;
• light weight, robust , simple, safe to operate  and cost effective.

Williames Tea has entered into a Contract Deed with one of the world’s leading tea producers to perform proof of concept trials with a view to commercialising the technology in mid 2011.