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If “regular” teas started to feel too ordinary, don’t despair. The world is full of lush tea bushes, even at the most unexpected places. And yes, California is one of them too.

USA-grown tea

Tasting rare and unique teas is a part of every tea lover’s journey. Although each country that has been producing tea for centuries or millenniums has much more to offer than just regular types, there is a certain charm in trying teas from places that don’t sound like the best place for growing Camellia sinensis. For example, California. It may not be common, but growing tea in the United States is not a new project.

Tea plant was brought to America in the 18th century. For the first hundred and fifty years, just like in Europe, all attempts of growing tea were pretty much unsuccessful [1]. But then things changed and future of growing tea in the US changed for good.

One of the oldest American tea plantations, Charleston Tea Plantation in South Carolina, has been producing American-grown tea for almost 60 years. Except South Carolina, Hawaii seems to be the only state where tea has been successfully grown for decades. Until recently. Tea gardens and plantations started slowly popping at the most unexpected places, bringing a lot of joy and unique loose leaf tea to passionate drinkers.  

Why did tea plants started thriving outside tea producing countries?

Tea is much more resilient that we might think. Firstly, there are different tea varietals and thousands of tea cultivars. Each of them will be different and more suitable for different climates. In general, tea plants love rain, mineral soil, milder winters and sun. But today, it’s possible to grow tea almost anywhere – except on Antarctica. Camellia sinensis will grow in the cool and cloudy Scottish Highlands as well as in the subtropical climate of the Azores. For example, tea plants that have a chance of surviving harsh weather conditions are those from countries with similar climate conditions or grown on very high altitudes. It’s possible to grow tea at your home as well, and there’s a special tea plant for that purpose too. However, tea growing requires a lot of knowledge and care, and meeting all requirements for plants to really thrive.

(Image Source: © Tea Chronicles )

California-grown tea

Until recently, California had a tea garden with over 800 plants – Golden Feather Tea. The garden was tragically lost in a fire in 2018, with only a small percentage of tea plants saved [2]. Tea plants not only thrived on acidic soil, but once processed, proved to brew into an amazingly delicious cup too. Unfortunately, what the future holds for this tea garden is still unknown.

Besides Golden Feather Tea garden, there are no other commercially available Californian Camellia sinensis teas. With tea plants being more steadily available than in the past, there will most certainly be more attempts at growing tea. In fact, the potential of growing tea in California has already been widely discussed among tea specialists and farmers. What was their conclusion? Californian natural diversity may indeed be a great home for cultivating lush tea plants, but for production on a larger scale (although still very small compared to large producers) other climate conditions need to be met too. While we can’t change the climate (at least not the way we would want to), we may or improve the soil with special microbes or choose the right tea plant. That means, potentially employing science to develop a tea plant that would be even better suited for the Californian terroir [3].

Will California become a new tea oasis? Share your thoughts in comments below.

Sources:

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/08/23/488817144/america-s-only-full-time-tea-taster-talks-about-life-on-the-charleston-tea-plant

[2] https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/The-farmer-that-saw-his-budding-California-tea-13745160.php

[3] https://theaggie.org/2018/03/08/california-tea-movement/