Indonesia
... as high as 30 feet, but a commercial tea plant is pruned to keep it from 3 to 4 feet high. The plant matures in three to five years and produces a flush. Each shoot consists of several leaves and a bud. At lower altitudes and warmer climates, tea plants may grow several flushes throughout the year. Workers called tea pluckers pick two leaves and a bud from each shoot by hand. A plucker can harvest about 40 pounds of tealeaves a day, enough to make about 10 pounds of tea. Coffea arabica is a shrub with glossy, evergreen leaves. It is 14 to 20 feet high when fully grown. As a rule, coffee growers prune it to less than 12 feet. It has white flowers that are self-pollinating, so it is also an angiosperm like the tea plant. The coffee fruit is called a berry. It begins to grow while the plant is blossoming and ripens from green to yellow to red. The average plant produces enough berries each year to make about 1 1/2 pounds of roasted coffee. A coffee plant is usually six to eight years old before it bears a full crop of berries. The common variety of coffee plant grows best at altitudes that range from 3,600 to 8,000 feet in a tropical climate. The majority of coffee plants grow from seeds that are first planted in nursery beds. After a year in the nursery, the seedlings are transplanted to prepared fields. About 500 to 1,000 seedlings are planted per acre. Rice is one of the world's most important food crops. More than half of the people in the world eat this grain as the main part of their meals. Nearly all the people who depend on rice for food live in Asia. In some Asian languages, the same word means eat and eat rice. Most rice is eaten as boiled, white grain. Rice is a cereal grain. Like other cereal grains, including wheat, corn, and oats, rice belongs to the grass family. But unlike other grains, rice grows best in shallow water. Rice thrives in many tropical areas because of their warm, wet climate. Farmers usually flood rice fields to supply the growing plants with moisture and to kill weeds and other pests. Together, they produce more than half of the world's yearly rice harvest. The hevea tree, or rubber tree, grows best in hot, moist climates in acid, well-drained soils. The finest rubber-growing regions lie within a rubber belt that exten...