Where tea is grown in the United States
Is tea grown in the United States? It sure is! American grown tea is growing in popularity. Tea farms have been popping up all around the country, here’s a run-down of what we’ve got so far (this post will be updated periodically):
Farms currently producing US grown tea:
Alabama
Fairhope Tea Plantation – [article]
South Carolina
Charleston Tea Plantation – [website]
Hawaii
Ahualoa – [website]
Big Island Tea – [website]
Cloudwater Tea Farm – [website]
Mauna Kea – [website]
Moonrise Tea – [website]
Na Liko – [website]
Onomea Tea – [website]
Tea Hawaii & Company – [website]
Michigan
Light of Day Organics – [website] [article]
Oregon
Minto Island Growers – [website] [article] [article]
Washington
Sakuma Brothers – [website]
Still working out the kinks:
Mississippi
FiLoLi Tea Farm – [website] [article]
California
Roy Fong of Imperial Tea Court’s Farm – [article]
Canada (had to mention it)
Teafarm [website]
Vancouver, BC
BC Tea Growers Society – [website]
Any others you know of? Let me know!
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I find it interesting to see that most of the plantations are in Hawaii. I was wondering why this was the case until I read in Wikipedia that Mauna Kea was more than 4000 meters above sea level. Thanks for the great post!
Wow. I had NO idea tea was grown in the US, but now that I think about it, that was kind of idiotic of me to assume it wasn’t. I’d be really curios to try some of the US grown teas to see how they stack up against the Asian ones.
Also, don’t forget the Fairhope Tea Plantation in Fairhope, Alabama.
I think it might also be useful to indicate which of these farms use clonally-propagated tea (rather than seedling-grown plants) as well as which ones hand-pick their tea as opposed to using machines. Also, I believe only 1-2 farms in Hawaii are growing their tea under any kind of shade….
Amazing! We have to admit that we didn’t know anything about tea cultivation in the United States! We have seen some figures, but nothing serious and we have never thought that there are in fact so many tea farms out there. I guess the world will soon start to import tea from the United States also, not only from the Asian countries. Very useful article, thanks for sharing!
Correction!
Sakuma Bro’s is in Washington state.
woops! thanks for the correction. fixed it!