grow my own tea

How I did it:

1. Purchased seeds off ebay.
2. Carefully filed down the hard 'shell' on the seeds.
3. Planted in acidic compost
4. Kept damp but not wet for about a month
5. Watered the resulting plants and waited for just over a year.
6. Picked outer leaves, made tea!

Lessons & tips:

• Get seeds a fresh as possible and pland ASAP
• The germination period is long and the seeds are prone to rot, so keep just moist and you can use copper based antifungal if you want.
• Tea prefurs acidic soil, so get 'lime free' compost.
• Don't pick leaves until the plant is big enough and then you can pick the leaves and buds to keep it the desired size / shape.
• For green tea steam then dry leaves in low oven immediatly.
• For black tea roll the leaves after picking and leave to oxidise , longer = darker tea, short time --> oolong tea, then dry in low oven.

May 11, 01:01PM PDT | 0 comments | 1 cheer