Tea Making

Earlier this year we went to a workshop on planting camellias offered by Camellia Forest Nursery. A couple from Tarboro NC who were also there mentioned that they had seen tea plants growing in an old cemetery in their town. Tarboro is one of the oldest towns in North Carolina. The cemetery is part of

We gathered leaves one more time last weekend with the goal of making black tea. The leaf handling is different in this method. Rather than preserve freshness, your goal is to have the leaf go brown from oxidation – like leaving a cut apple out on the counter. The flesh of the apple turns brown

Our success making green tea was the result of a series of Zoom talks we attended over the summer last year. The courses were offered by the US Tea Experience, a group led by the tea makers at the Great Mississippi Tea Company. The owners also offer training at their facility in Brookhaven in southern

We are two years into this publishing effort with no books to show for it. That is about to change. Our first work, Mission to Brazil (to Research the Cultivation and Preparation of Tea, 1839), is quite close to completion. An ISBN is assigned. The cover design is done. Book layout is almost finished. The

At latitude 35o N the Brown Dog lies just above upstate South Carolina. That puts us slightly north of Chinese tea growing areas that fall around the 30th parallel. Not something you think about most days. However, that observation was made by nineteenth century American farmers and used to promote the idea that tea (Camellia