Almost A Tea Farm

One of the places I most wanted to take Prissy during our month was to the tea farm project I've been involved in. Roy Fong, owner of Imperial Tea Court, has been testing different varitals to see which is best suited to our climate and soils.

We had a great surprise when a batch of new seedlings arrived.

We met in the greenhouse to sort and plant them as quickly as possible.

Hopefully this batch will survive the remaining winter. I brought some home with me (higher elevation and more acid soil) to see how they grow here.

A farmer friend of mine just returned from a convention where their keynote speaker named tea as one of the up-and-coming plants in the near future. The demand for it as an ingredient in assorted health products is huge. But growing a plant that can produce a flavorful oolong is a completely different thing.

Roy's dream is that this farm becomes an educational destination for tea people. It's a few years down the road, to be sure. But every step right now seems like a milestone.