Tea picking is one of the important links to tea production process, and the cutter is an important part of picking device. In order to reliably measure the primary cutting rate, repeated cutting rate and leakage rate of reciprocating cutter of portable tea picking machine, the reciprocating cutter was taken as an object of simulation and experiment. The kinematics simulation of cutter was studied by using ADAMS, and an experimental analysis of the primary cutting rate, repeated cutting rate and leakage rate was made by using response surface methodology based on simulation data. The results showed that the optimal combination of tooth pitch, tooth depth and cutting speed index were 20mm, 18.61mm and 1.05, respectively. For ease of processing, tooth pitch, tooth depth and cutting speed index were chosen to be 20mm, 19mm and 1.05, respectively. At this time, the values of primary cutting rate, repeated cutting rate and leakage rate were 76.45%, 21.34% and 2.50%, respectively. The results of the experimental research on the developed double-acting blade reciprocating cutter were compared with simulation data. The results showed that the range of leakage rate and primary cutting rate were 0.79%~3.64% and 70.55%~79.90% when the tooth pitch, tooth depth and cutting speed index were 20mm, 19mm and 1.05, respectively. While the error of leakage rate and primary cutting rate between the simulation and experimental data were 2% and 6%, respectively. The method provided a theoretical basis for optimizing the parameters of portable tea picking machine.