Tea is something associated with serenity, wisdom, and general peaceful settings.
There are stories about English soldiers taking solace during lulls in battle by having a cup of tea, even when the tea had been used to the point of almost being flavorless.
People see tea as a mark of civility.
The hazards to the plants, however, are best suited to things portrayed in horror movies.
There is a species of butterfly that is a mottled brown and black, known as the Willow Beauty.
The caterpillars will eat the leaves and then have the audacity to form their cocoons amongst the remains of their victims.
The mature butterfly is not all that beautiful, being light gray or a dull yellow, with the muddy mottling of browns and black enabling it to blend in with tree bark and avoid being eaten by birds.
It is not so equitable in it's treatment of tea leaves.
Luckily, caterpillars are easier to see and kill without harming the plant.
In areas where tea is grown and the species is known, some tea growers will encourage various insect eating birds and predatory bugs to control any increase in the Willow Beauty numbers.
Besides caterpillars, other insects can pose a problem to tea, but the plant seems to have some ability to defend itself.
Many types of beetles avoid caffeine and the various elements that give tea it's flavor.
It may be that the level of caffeine in many plants evolved to discourage becoming a salad bar for every passing bug.
This, of course, created a niche for other insects to fill.
Similar to butterflies, there are moths that will live on tea leaves.
The species of moth called, appropriately, the Tea Moth, is found throughout Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan.
These also happen to be areas of the world with exceptionally long histories of tea production.
Even humans can be affected by this yellowish insect.
The larva and adult both have fine hairs that can cause a rash, nausea and loss of balance in people.
This defense makes them difficult to control as the toxins on these fine hairs make them distasteful to many natural predators.
However, there have been experiments for over a decade in China using simple sticky traps coated with pheromones to eliminate the moths without risk of harm to the environment.
More insidious than either other types of pests are nematodes.
Everyone has seen a member of this classification - worms are the most commonly known type.
There are root nematodes whose effects cannot be discerned immediately, so a plant must show signs of infestation first, then be removed.
Tea plants immediately near it are also removed, as the close plantings will result in easy spread of infestation.
Tea pests are small and often overlooked.
Careful management and awareness are the best defenses.
Use of insect predators and small easily made traps can reduce the effect of insects, so tea production can continue to keep civilization going.