Yes, the tea is now experiencing an explosive flush. I think it’s the hurricanes because everything is growing fast at an exceptional pace. Fresh green leaves are hiding the broken bones of the big trees laying all around us. What once was our shade garden is now quite sunny after the storm removed the tree canopy. It is producing a different tea. The 30 year old bushes look like bonsai trees with nude limbs which are not dead and by June will be covered in fresh growth. We have been picking since mid-March.
I had a tea tour one day and told the guests “imagine this bush covered in soft green growth.” The very next day I had a group in the same spot and announced “See all this new growth, its the first flush and almost ready to pluck.” It came on that fast. My first small pickings have made batches of a very fine, flowery Yellow tea. We are making larger batches of green tea and will start this weekend makin first flush black tea. I’m getting request for Oolong so we will make some batches of that soon. Sometimes I think I work too hard at it with me working on tea everyday, all day long. I am supposed to be retired.
We are having a tea tour almost every day. Some days two or three a day. Its like teaching school where you can not remember if you have already said that or not. We are getting quite a variety of people who come to see the tea farm. Some who know much more about tea than I and some who know little and just stare at me when I am explaining where tea comes from. I’ve had people from other countries who made fun of us and a lady from France that called me “the Dukes of Hazzard.” They all seem to like riding around on the golf cart. Remember tours cost $10 per person, children free. Small groups are best. We are not set up now to do bus tours or school groups as the hurricane destroyed most of my outside chairs.
Also, we are discontinuing our on-line sales. I appreciate the many orders that allowed me to sell the tea that Covid left me holding. Alabama tea is now being sold from Washington State to Florida. If you want to restock, call me up and talk me into it. But, we are selling the tea we need to sell right in our driveway. We can barely keep tea packages in stock ready to sell tourist. And, as I have said, I have gotten really tired of standing in line at the Post Office.
Come see us!
Donnie Barrett