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 day now making green and black tea. Besides bagging the 17 pounds 4 ounces of black this morning, I also rolled three bushels of fresh green leaves in the tea roller which is now going through the oxidation stage to turn green tea into black. We are a tea producing factory, for sure! We have made around 250 pounds of tea this year and we are still going wide open.
It was 96 degrees yesterday while I was picking. It makes you were long pants and sleeves and a huge straw hat. You have to work in slow motion and drink as much salty water as you can swallow. I can down a whole bottle of sports drink in one breath.
The high heat has slowed our daily tea tours down. That is great for me as 1:00 tea tour time is also afternoon nap time! Come see us when I gets a hair cooler and I let you smell the fresh tea.
Donnie Barrett