Here is a sketch of the detour to the tea farm. The county has closed the road within a mile of our farm and this is confusing our guest who visit the farm every day. Where you usually turn onto Co Rd 11, they do not have a sign there saying the road is closed [...]
Yesterday my wife and I celebrated the last picking of tea for the season. We called it "the last pull." It was about three bushels of leaf to make a batch of green tea. Late season green tea has a different flavor than earlier in the season green tea. We made more black tea than [...]
This is me with 17.4 pounds of freshly roasted black tea. The aroma of this is wonderful! I wish I could share this as few people ever see this much tea at one time and very few folks get to enjoy the delightful smell of fresh, hot roasted black tea. We are busy every [...]
We are having a huge bumper crop of tea this year. Last year I went for long periods with nothing to pick but this year it is growing faster than I can pick it. I shoot for 300 pounds a year and did not make that last year. We almost sold out by spring, before [...]
We were delighted to have the staff from The Copper Kettle Tea Bar come visit the tea farm to learn about tea production. This tea bar carries over a hundred and thirty types of tea but boast they like serving Fairhope tea the most. They are located in Foley, Alabama on Chicago Street on the [...]
This photo is the first tea we picked and processed this new year. This was taken on April 8 when the solar eclipse was at about 75%. It is in my dry pen, drying out in the sun, a drying technique I learned from the Chinese. The dry pen keeps the wind from blowing on [...]
As every year, we celebrate the springs first flush with a retirement of the scarecrow out in the tea field. He has done a great job of keeping the crows out of the tea field but now spring has sprung! First we had guests file by to bid hale and farewell to an old friend [...]
It is still cold here in Fairhope and the spring has not sprung and the tea buds are not swelling...yet. That will happen in a matter of days and the bleak, thin tea bushes will all turn bright green. This photo is a tea branch I keep on my patio to show tea plant customers [...]
This is the time of year where we prune our tea bushes in anticipation of the spring flush. The flush, or first spring growth comes early to tea. It buds out before most all the other bushes and plants which are still winter dormant. I often wish it would bud out later when we [...]
I had a five year old tourist said he was relieved that my scarecrow was not too scary. He was likely thinking how circus clowns are depicted today. This years scarecrow has a lighthearted, almost comical look. I leave the scarecrows up until the first flush of tea then we celebrate the spring with a [...]
