Let The Great Tea Adventure Begin!
Grow your own tea? Why not?
The Naturalized Human brings together the science and human experience of the mind-body-food connection and explores topics like biology, nutrition, growing food, wellness and living in harmony with our environment. I write weekly. Paid subscribers get access to exclusive content, and support me as an independent (human!) writer. No AI here!
When it comes to growing your own food, few things are more satisfying than sitting down to a meal that is partially or completely from your own garden. But what about your drink?
Herbal teas are certainly accessible to the home gardener, and have been for centuries. But what about black, green or white teas? Is it possible to grow these?
As I began assembling my dream collection of plants for the sunroom I will one day build, the idea of tea floated to the surface. I get that few people understand my logic in buying the plants first and building the sunroom second, but hear me out.
As I envisioned my future, complete with a sunroom filled with tropical food plants, I could see that moment in my mind when the building part was done and I am stepping into my glorious new sunroom with a 6 inch tropical in my hand. So not satisfying!
It can 2-3 years, or more, to grow most food-producing tropicals to a size worthy of the sunroom. And that was the moment I realized I could actually start living my dream of having these beautiful plants right now - because by the time they need the sunroom I would have figured out how to pay for that scale of renovation! Win-win.
Tea was not on my dream plant list. Not to begin with. Bananas, dwarf pomegranate and figs were plants I figured I could tackle right away (and did).
As my research expanded on what could be possible to grow as a houseplant using an indoor/outdoor system to allow the plants the conditions they need to be productive and successful, more options went on my list. These included olives and tea!
I welcomed my first two tea plants home - real tea - Camellia sinesis - this weekend. It’s going to be a thirst-quenching adventure!
What is tea?
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, tea is:
a “beverage produced by steeping in freshly boiled water the young leaves and leaf buds of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis”
The tea plant itself originates in east Asia, but the four biggest tea producers in the world are now China, India, Sri Lanka and Kenya, producing 75% of the world’s tea.
If you want to know more about tea, then
Steeped Stories is a must read. I have been simply delighted to find her Substack and start exploring the world of tea through her eyes.Growing tea as a houseplant?
Again, tea was not an A-list plant for me to try growing. But the more I learned about the health benefits of tea, and the fact that the plants do best kept at about a 4 foot height (1.2 m), I decided that tea plants could be fun to try.
According to Tropic of Canada (my go-to authority and source of tropicals), you can make both black and green tea from the same plant depending on the drying and rolling techniques.
I chose two varieties: Camellia sinesis Christina’s Choice and Super Sochi. The first is a selected variety by Christina Parks and part of the Camellia Forest introduction, tolerating temperatures as low as -5C (23F). The second is a refined selection of the Sochi variety that is cold tolerant to -10C (14F) for short periods of time. That means neither plant can actually grow outside where I live, but that cold tolerance gives me a buffer to work with when moving plants inside-out and back again.
As a houseplant, tea doesn’t need full sun all day which makes it easier to care for than most other tropicals. It will eventually need a big pot, but you can keep the plant as a nicely shaped shrub through pruning, aka collecting leaves to make tea!
Tea plants flower and they are supposed to have a delicate aroma. I was excited to see well-formed seeds on my Super Sochi when it arrived and flower buds on both plants. Tea can be propagated from seeds or cuttings.
Unboxing the tea
My plants arrived in incredible shape - Thanks Tropic of Canada for the amazing packing and shipping job!
[As an aside, this shipment also contained: my second olive (Olea europaea -Manzanillo) and a pineapple for my Dad (that’s another story - Ananas - White Jade). I can get 4x 1gallon pots shipped in one box]
I inspected each plant and determined they needed to upsize from their 1-gallon pots right away. I created a mix of potting soil and some compost and a dash of Gaia Green 444 fertilizer (Amazon affiliate link).
My new plants are settling in a shady spot on my deck where they will get some morning sun only. The change to our intense 30+C (86F) summer heat will take an adjustment for the plants, especially after shipping and then re-potting. Since they don’t want full sun all day anyway, this means my tea plants can brighten up an otherwise unused shady spot on the deck for the summer.
When the weather starts to shift in the fall, I will bring the plants in to be houseplants. Tea has a chilling requirement to help it maintain a natural cycle. They need 150 hours below 10C (50F). I’ll be shooting for leaving them outside long enough to get that need met, but not so long I am risking their cold tolerance. Tea plants are evergreen, so they are not going to drop their leaves the way the figs and pomegranates will.
Having houseplants that are not only beautiful, but practical and nutritious is one of my main goals. You can read more about the incredible benefits of adding plants to your life in this post: The Life-Changing Benefits of Houseplants.
Have you ever tried growing an exotic food plant before? Let me know in the comments.
That’s a very ambitious and interesting project Sue! And thanks for the mention. I just threw a few seeds from my organic lemons in a pot outside and they’re growing. I don’t know what I’ll do with them come winter.