Charleston Tea Plantation - Summerville roots

Beautiful drive into our Charleston Tea Plantation

     Wow, if you have not taken a drive to Wadmalaw Island and taken the tour of the Charleston Tea Plantation you are really missing out.  I took the wife and mother-in-law down there yesterday and we had a great time. I had no idea there was so much information about Tea!  What's really cool is that the tea plantation literally has it's roots in Summerville (pun intended).
     In 1888 Dr. Charles Shepard started the Pinehurst Tea Plantation in Summerville.  After his death in 1915 the tea plants grew wild until 1963 and then relocated to Wadmalaw Island onto a 127 acre potato farm.  Between 1963 and 1987 some experimentation and research took place, by Lipton, on the farm and in 1987 Mr. William Barclay Hall, a 3rd generation tea taster, took it over.  In 2003, he formed a partnership with Bigelow but there is no Bigelow tea in our local tea and vice versa.  To this day the Charleston Tea Plantation is the only tea farm in North America.  I found out during the tour the Bigelow imports all it's tea from overseas but our own local American Classic Tea is 100% grown and is all natural here in Charleston.

Charleston Tea Plantation history

     As a former educator I'm about to go back to my roots and teach you a little about tea.  Did you know that there are only 3 types of tea and they all come from the exact same leaf: Oolong, Green and Black.  Also, the only part of the tea leaf that our plantation extracts are the young sprouting leaves (which are "flushing" up) which taste the best and are less bitter.  The first cutting of the season is the called the "first flush" hence our local, traditional first flush festival. This tea is truly unique and tastes different than the rest of the tea harvested during the rest of the season.  I tried some and it was really good.  I prefer Black Tea because of it's bolder taste and color which I found out is due to it having the longest oxidation process. Oolong, which we usually drink with Chinese food, has the shortest oxidation is therefore a light colored tea and Green Tea has zero oxidation. It's leaves are extracted and taken right to the drier and then cut up into small pieces.

     Since we are the only tea plantation in N. America and Summerville is the Birthplace of sweet tea we have a unique relationship to our tea plants. They came directly from Summerville and because tea plants live hundreds of years I know my next cup of American Classic Tea is right from my own town.  It does not get more local than that and it's really good tea! 

The Island Mentality:  "Start your day off slow and taper down from there."

Our Trolley Tour around the 127 acre farm...I learned a lot!