There are instructions for home processing of tea (Camellia sinensis) in
Rosalind Creasy's book, Edible Landscaping. It is laborious, but it works,
and makes great tea. (Same leaves but different process for black or green
tea.)

You can mail-order plants from territorialseed.com, and undoubtedly others.
A few years ago there was a mania for named cultivars, the idea being that
different varieties would produce different tea, like wine and grapes. I
think that may have died down by now.

There used to be a tea plantation in Charleston, SC.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallb...ston-tea_x.htm
Don't know what's happening with it now. I ordered some of their tea many
years ago, and, I'm sorry to say, it was awful.

I have a couple of (unnamed) tea plants that have disappointed me with their
floppy growth habit. I was hoping to use them as a screen, but they're the
wrong shape. I think the common wisdom is that they like similar conditions
to Camellia japonica, flowering camellias. Don't count on the flowers of C.
sinensis for anything, though; they really are insignificant. (bloom in the
fall)

HTH

--

Visit www.insectgraphics.com for all your insect gift needs
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...
"Vandy Terre" wrote in message
On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:58:28 -0700 (PDT), Merryb wrote:

Does anyone here grow tea? I was thinking the other night that I know
of no one who does...Guess I'll have to research the issue, but it
could be kinda fun...

Like the original poster I am interested in growing tea, as in the tree
or
shrub
that yields the leaves for common tea.

By "common tea" I assume you mean the black tea leaves one puts in a
teapot
and then pour water on.

If you mean that, then it is actually fermented and is called (IIRC)
'black
tea'.

Tea leaves which you would harvest from a garden camellia plant and dry
for
home use actually end up as what we in the west would call 'green tea'.
These two teas just come from common old camellia sinensis which has
relatively small and insignificant flowers nad it is also a reasonably
common plant so shouldn't be too hard to find.

IIRC, if you want to make 'black tea', you have to first sweat the leaves
and leave them for a reasonably short time to ferment and then dry them to
end up with a product you'd use in your teapot.