We have a one hundred yard long tea garden we planted in the woods about 30 years ago. I used it to make tea for several years but it became too shady. After a hurricane blew away the tree tops six years ago I did pick tea there but otherwise it has grown into twelve foot bushes. This is actually used now to ride tourist down the rows in a golf cart and not for production.
The bushes have gotten so tall that the tourist can not tell the tea from the trees. So I am pruning it in half just so the tourist can recognize it as tea bushes. Its a major job! It produces lots of debris that has to be removed. These leaves are cold dormant and lack the sugars and starches that give tea flavor and character, particularly with green tea. Some have tried to make tea out of dormant large adult leaves but it produces a dirty water and not what we think of as tea. What I will make from these dead looking sticks is a yellow tea. These will burst out in growing buds in a few short weeks. When they are tiny we will pick, pick, pick, pick, pick the terminal bud and one, maybe two of the emerging tiny leaves. It takes an hour to get a double hand full. We will dry them out without heat or sun and keep whole leaf. This is the best tea we make but I don’t produce enough to package and sell.
I am still getting continued request for green tea. We will have our first batches ready toward the end of March. We still have black tea, but supplies are dwindling, which we sell to tea farm tourist and drive up customers. It is surprising so many people want teabags when the tea is much better when brewed loose leaf.
We are still doing farm tours most every day. These are $20 per person in cash. We only need 2 or 3 people at a time and do not entertain groups. Young children and dogs are not interested in how tea is grown and made, but many people are. We regularly meet interesting people who share an interest in horticulture and tea craft. Tours take about an hour and start with a cup of fresh brewed tea, a discussion on how green tea and black tea are made from the same leaves and a ride out to the tea fields where we see thousands of tea bushes. Folks are very complementary of our tours. Come see us!
Donnie Barrett
Fairhope Tea Farm