茶 (Chá) by land. Tea by sea.

Living Plants

Today, tea grows on six continents and in numerous countries around the world. Even in America, there are tea gardens in select micro-climates along the south, southeastern, and western coasts as well as Hawaii. In its natural state, tea is a tree! Under cultivation tea trees are sometimes pruned to be a much smaller tree, but most are often shaped to look like a bush, and when planted in a row close together, make unbroken lines—often terraced. Tea can be found growing across the spectrum from wild to cultivated, in forests, polyculture home gardens, as well as on plantations, estates, and tea gardens. Of the six commonly accepted tea categories, green, yellow, white, oolong (wulong), black (hong), and dark (hei), black is the largest tea category produced and consumed worldwide, with green teas primarily made in East Asia. With the cultural home of tea being China, today it is the only country where all six categories are made and consumed in earnest.

If you find yourself far from commercial tea fields, a botanical garden might be the source to find a living tea plant. Often, a Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, or even var. assamica specimens, can be found tucked in among ornamental Camellia collections outside or in greenhouses around the world. See if you can find tea through online plant finders, or in person at the New York Botanical Garden, Missouri Botanical Garden, the Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum in Berlin, Germany, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Eden Project Cornwall, as well as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew outside and in their refurbished Temperate House, both in England.

Dried Plants

For enthusiasts and researchers of all types, one can find dried tea plant specimens in person or online at various herbariums around the world. Begin searching with the genus, and search down to the species, variety, and cultivar. If there are online entries without images, write them a kind email asking what their digitization plans are for the specimens you are seeking. A great blog to explore different herbaria and their importance around the world is Herbarium World. Otherwise, well-known online herbarium databases include:

Missouri Botanical Garden, Tropicos®
New York Botanical Garden, catalog among other resources
Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which is currently being migrated to a new system, stay tuned.
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Scientific Collections & Museums

There are many tea and, or teaware museums of different foci and sizes around the world, often in growing regions and where consumption is popular. From what I have seen they can cover tea as: a local industry, a crop of national pride, its history, categories, and foundations, recent research and developments, trade, as well as strictly teaware. Plant-based objects are difficult to preserve depending on your environmental conditions, and, insects! This is also why teaware often makes up a large portion of tea-focused material collections.

Nevertheless, there is a cultural practice of aging tea leaves for consumption. Tea is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs scent and moisture, so aging can be tricky. Some do not age well, while others become more desirable with increased market value. These teas often are traded and consumed and rarely end up in non-consumable heritage collections. Thus, historic tea leaves are increasingly rare the further back one goes and are equally intriguing from consumption as well as a research perspective.

Keep an eye out for displays in public museums, archives, history collections, teahouses, and shops, but also biocultural (economic botany, or ethnobotanical) collections around the world, which may have an online catalog such as RBG Kew’s Economic Botany Collection, located here, or Missouri Botanical Garden’s, searchable here.

Some of my other favorite collections:

Tea Museum, Shizuoka, Japan
Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware, Hong Kong
Hadong Tea Museum, Hadong, South Korea
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, United Kingdom
Tea History Collection, online, and in-person by appointment, founded & hosted by Denys Shortt, a member of the Tea History Association — both based in the UK.

Hot Tea Brewing Tips

Lesson 101 is to know and work your variables: leaf, water, ratio, temperature, and (steep) time.

Understanding these variables is the best way to improve and expand anyone’s tea experience.

First and foremost understand what type of tea you have by checking which tea category and type you have to brew. There are six tea categories organized by degree of oxidation as follows, green (绿 Lǜ), white (白 Bái), yellow (黄 Huáng), oolong (or seen as Wulong, 乌龙 Wūlóng), black (红 Hóng ), dark (黑 Hēi). “Purple tea”, is often found as a black tea in the market, which is made with raw tea leaves which have a purple-red leaf color—similar to deciduous trees with purple foliage seen in North America. On average: lower oxidation = lower temperature and less time, while higher oxidation = higher temperature and more time.

To cool water for green tea there are a few ways depending on your setup. In winter, that mug out of the cupboard on the external wall of the kitchen would do just fine. Or filling a mug with hot water and letting it sit before putting the tea bag in, or a pitcher for loose leaf service, is often sufficient. In cafes, tossing the water between two pitchers works well. Being aware and adhering to water temperature for green teas will significantly improve one’s experience.

Further, recognizing the size of the leaf, or grade, will impact the steep time. Smaller leaves and broken teas do not necessarily mean lower quality. It is merely a factor to recognize and consider—Small pieces = more surface area = more extraction = less time needed for the same gram weight of whole leaves.

Water quality is important, but it is often a challenge to know the composition of one’s water. Without having PH or TDS testing equipment (two ways of knowing), using the senses is a great way to start. Do you smell metals? Funk? Iron? Sulfur? In general, lower oxidation teas need soft water and as you increase in oxidation teas will need harder water. To test this concept, brew two pots of tea using the same gram weight of a black tea the same exact way, except use opposing water hardness—one really soft and the other hard. You will notice a different mouthfeel and in general more extracted in your pot brewed with harder water. Different black tea types will need different hard water.

Playing with ratio is the fun part because it is easy to add or take away leaves as you prefer. In general, I find the one-teaspoon measure or cutlery utensil too small for most brews (at 8 oz) and lean towards a tablespoon. Note many ‘coffee scoops’ are not a standard tablespoon and are often an undesirable shape to use without breaking the leaves. Protect the integrity of the leaf! Having a single starting point by volume for all tea is difficult to recommend since a dense black tea or ball-rolled oolong will more easily fill a spoon than a fluffy white tea. However, my recommendation is to start with a full or heaping tablespoon, which is about 4-6 grams, per 250ml, and go from there. !Remember: Low tea-to-water ratio = more time, high tea-to-water ratio = less time.

Understanding these variables will set you up for choosing and getting the most out of different brewing vessels (teapots, tea filters [paper, plastic, silicon, metal], etc). The more anyone makes tea it will become clear how some teas do better in one vessel over others, and that some are made or intended to be brewed in a certain way to fulfill their design and potential. This is important to keep in mind to maximize your experience, but do remember that tea is approachable and any can be made in any vessel— just know that it will yield a different result by default. The key word here is to play with what you have and then grow your teaware collection as desired. Becoming familiar with and practicing all of the variables within your control will lead to brewing any tea to its fullest potential and result in an enriched, more meaningful tea journey.

There are tea-tasting or flavor wheels, much like can be seen in the specialty coffee and wine industries, used in the tea world such as this wheel from the International Tea Masters Association; however, I encourage you to trust your instinct, and to remember that there are no wrong answers. What flavors and aromas you come up with will change with experience. Please do not be discouraged, your palate will evolve the more you taste and as you build a closer relationship with the plant. Mindful tea brewing is a wonderful means of meditation, and of course, mindfulness.

Industry Insight

Formed in 1950, the Tea Association of The United States of America can also be seen as, The U.S. Tea Association, with the abbreviation most often seen as, TeaUSA. A membership with TeaUSA provides access to the Tea Council of the US, which “functions as the public relations arm for the Tea industry and its primary purpose is to encourage greater tea consumption by the American public. The Tea Council of the USA was established to allow all members and participants of the Tea Trade in the United States to have a vehicle with which they could support the promotion of tea in this country.” The Specialty Tea Institute, which was the educational division of TeaUSA, is now defunct. They were similar in scope to the World Tea Academy, a branch of the World Tea, owned by Questex. World Tea has been a long-time stronghold for industry and consumers alike with news, education, and an annual exposition (World Tea Expo) hosted in Las Vegas, NV, USA. Download a white paper from their 2019 exposition here.

Tea education among the American public has come a long way in the past 40 years and significantly in the past 15-20 to where tea knowledge and training opportunities are readily available online and in-person from an increased number of tea and coffee companies, and individuals nationwide. Further, there has always been a vein of tea vendors and tea education present at the Speciality Coffee Association’s (SCA) annual exposition. The organization was established in the early 1980s and was originally called the Speciality Coffee Association of America (SCAA) before it merged with the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe in 2016. Today they are co-managed by ‘SCA’ internationally. Additionally, there are tea specific gatherings to share products, history, heritage, and knowledge across the United States such as the Northwest Tea Festival, Midwest Tea Festival, and Portland Tea Festival (Tea FestPDX).

“Speciality” Tea

The beginning of the specialty tea movement is in the history books, and we now find ourselves in a subsequent phase of its trajectory which delightfully has no end in sight. It is an interesting time to watch, take part, and enjoy the work of many industry members, experts, writers, enthusiasts, and consumers in today’s tea renaissance. To get involved, I would follow the above associations and businesses, as well as the Speciality Tea Alliance in the U.S. (now a facebook group), the European Speciality Tea Association (with UK, Ireland, Benelux, and Denmark, and Russian [in hiatus] Chapters), International Speciality Tea Association, and the Global Tea Institute (GTI) at the University of California, Davis. Established in 2015, GTI’s mission is to:

“…promote the understanding of tea through evidence-based knowledge with a global perspective–promoting tea research from anywhere in the world, in any discipline, with any methodology. We actively foster knowledge through colloquia and symposia, lectures, and workshops which address the needs of the campus, industry, and general public. Teaching across the disciplines, we have also begun to write a new Global Tea Culture and Science curriculum for undergraduates and graduate UC Davis students….”.

Tea awards & competitions

There are many awards and competitions found around the world. In the US there is the World Tea Expo mentioned above. In the UK the UK Tea Academy just began its ‘Leafies’ Awards, in France the Agency for the Valoraisation of Agricultural Products (AVPA) has its tea (among other crops) awards, and in Australia, they have their Golden Leaf Awards. One of the longest-running awards is the Tea Masters Cup which is international and based in Russia.

Publications

Another resource for industry listings is the World Tea Directory available online. Also, there are trade publications including Fresh Cup, Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, STir, Global Tea Hut, Contemporary Tea Journal (Pub by Contemporary Tea Brokers), and Tea Journal (Intl). A publication and outlet run by Dan Bolton is Tea Journey Magazine, which is informed and curated by the global tea community and is published online and in English. In addition, he has a podcast called “Tea Biz” summarizing news and events from around the tea world. Follow him on social media platforms as well. A wonderful magazine no longer in print is Margaret Thornby’s Tea & Teaware, which ran ~2006-2013 and was based in the UK.

Keep in mind, that there are many more tea publications in languages other than English worldwide!

Trade Groups

In addition to the US representative body mentioned above; in Canada they have the Tea and Herbal Association of Canada, in the United Kingdom their trade group is called the UK Tea & Infusion Association (UKTIA), for many European countries Tea and Herbal Infusions Europe is the representative body for tea (and herbal) packers, and for Ireland, there is the Irish Tea Trade Association.

Also based in the UK is the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), which is a "not-for-profit organization that convenes the tea industry, development partners, NGOs, and governments to improve the lives of tea workers, farmers, and the environment in which they live and work.”

US, UK & EU Tea Growers

The specialty tea movement is where a small, but growing, market of American-grown tea can be found. American growers are largely represented through The United States League of Tea Growers, established in 2013.

There is no equivalent organization for tea growers in the United Kingdom, though growers in Scotland have been representing themselves via two main groups, the Tea Gardens of Scotland, and Tea Scotland with growers across the country. A few can be found represented individually in the European Tea Growers Association (Tea Grown in Europe Association, or EU Tea Growers), where you can find other growers across Europe.

Lists of growers and locations in and outside the USA, UK & Europe can be found in the following books:

Jane Pettigrew’s World of Tea, Jane Pettigrew, 2018
The World Tea Encyclopaedia, Will Battle, 2017
World Atlas of Tea, Krisi Smith, 2016

Interested in growing tea?

Your location is everything. Tea can grow in a wide range of environments but does need certain conditions. Success can depend on your plant variety or cultivar, how it was initially propagated, soil pH, water hardness, and how it is transplanted.

A good starting point is this book written by a tea supplier and grower in North Carolina, USA, Christine Parks: Grow Your Own Tea: The Complete Guide to Cultivating, Harvesting and Preparing, 2020, 2nd Edition
RHS, Royal Horticultural Society: Grow Your Own Tea
RHS: Plant Finder, Camellia sinensis
Member resources via US League of Tea Growers, & Tea Grown in Europe Association
Tea Cultivation: Comprehensive Treatise, 2002, by Ghosh N. Hajra
Tea: Cultivation to consumption 1992, by K.C. Willson (Editor), M.N. Clifford (Editor)

Sourcing plant material

Please follow all border and environmental protections in your country and state. Sellers of tea seeds and plants can be found on the internet, including Amazon, and will sell to anyone regardless of rules and regulations. Please note it is illegal to import living plant material over international borders, especially in soil, without qualifications and a phytosanitary certificate. Mail ordering seeds from overseas can pose an environmental risk of spreading disease if not done properly. So please, work with a trusted importer, or purchase within your own country. Established growers are also a wellspring of knowledge and are often very helpful to new growers.

Living plants and seeds can be purchased within the USA from:

Minto Island Tea Company, Oregon
The Great Mississippi Tea Company, Mississippi
Camellia Forest Nursery, North Carolina
Camellia Shop, Georgia
Nuccio’s Nurseries, California
Tsubaki Camellias, Inc, Georgia

Living plants and seeds can be purchased within the UK from:

Tea Gardens of Scotland (Member group), Scotland
Tea Scotland (Member group), Scotland
Peterson Tea, Wales
Dartmoor Estate Tea, Devon
Tregothnan, Cornwall
RHS: Plant Finder Nursery Search, Camellia sinensis, for nurseries within the UK

Consider yourself lucky if you live near or can get your hands on some of these seeds and plants!