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It certainly takes a good few years of hard work to produce Welsh tea! We have grown most of our tea plants from seed which is carefully sourced from a number of different areas, ex Soviet Georgia and Ilam in Nepal to name a couple. Each seed produces a unique plant so growing in this way gives us huge genetic variance and the best possible chance of establishing high quality plants that tolerate our climate. It also means our teas will be as nature intended, rich in diversity of flavour & aromas, always full of character but always changing - and completely unique!!
Some of our tea is growing under poly-tunnels and some on a south facing, slightly windswept hill, although in Wales this tends to mean a hillside regularly experiencing gale force winds and horizontal rain.
It takes 4-5 years from planting for tea plants to mature into good sized bushes with a ‘table-top’ that can withstand regular plucking, so to produce good tea, there has been a bit of a wait! Our protected plants are growing much faster than those braving the maritime weather outside and we were able to pick our first tea leaves from them in 2018 (literally a handful!).
The concept of terroir applies strongly to tea - the soil, habitat and climatic conditions our plants experience impart a unique character to the finished teas. We think that our combination of location, organic farming, careful picking and innovative processing are heading towards making a very special product.
A small farm with big ideas - We grow all of our tea and fruit organically (Soil Association certified) and are passionate about promoting biodiversity on our farm and providing a habitat in which birds, mammals, insects and soil microorganisms and fungi can flourish.
It is important to try and provide a beneficial microclimate for our tea plants - they need shelter from harsh winds and are grateful of some shade when we get scorching hot summers. This is where agroforestry comes in - a system of growing both trees and horticultural crops on the same land to conserve, diversify and sustain natural resources. We hunted high and low for suitable companion crops and decided that we would incorporate a wide range of fruiting plants, Sichuan pepper and some nitrogen fixing species of trees and shrubs.
Growing trees alongside our tea has huge benefits - our tea plants get the protection they need, the soil structure is improved and they help form a perfect habitat for wildlife. Good environment. Good tea.
And… it also means at certain times of the year we have some of these crops available for sale. We usually have surplus strawberries and cherries available in the summer and yuzu fruit, Sichuan pepper and Timut pepper in the autumn and winter.
