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 green this year mostly by accident because we usually make 50-50% of each.
Yes, we celebrated with a couple glasses of wine, which we would have had anyway, and road around the tea fields thinking of all the weeds we now have to clean up. Also we get to dismantle the tea factory in our living room and store all the tea making gear in the barn. It will be nice not having tea sheets all over the house in different stages of production.
The photo here is a row of tea bags in my airconditioned store room in the barn with the tea stored in Mylar bags. My wife said no one can tell what this is but they are 10-14 pounds each with an air eater put inside then we iron them closed. There are more like this in the house. The clothes pins are bags that I am working out of.
I could still be making tea as it is growing but a bit unevenly as it does this time of year. We have made over 300 pounds of tea this season and that is about what it takes to do the tea business like we do. I could make tea up into November.
The daily tea tours have slowed down in the 95 degree heat but that means I get to take a 1:00 nap. They will certainly pick up in the fall back to several calls a day. Drive up business is real good and has not slowed up. So when it gets cooler, call for an appointment and come see us!
Donnie