LONDON – Writer Tessa Cunningham and James Wong, a panellist on Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time, speak about their very own tea bush.
Tessa Cunningham: sitting in my garden sipping tea, I feel decidedly smug. It’s not the best cuppa I’ve ever had – in fact, it’s rather bitter. And if I want another, I’ll have to wait for a day or two.
But none of that matters. I’m flushed with pride because this is a cup of tea I’ve made from scratch. I grew, plucked, rolled and dried the leaves myself.
Beside me in a tub on the patio is my very own tea bush (Camellia sinensis), which was a snip at £16.50. Just as all wine comes from grapes, all tea – black, green, white or oolong – comes from the leaves of this plant. The only difference being the way the leaves are treated once picked.
It all sounds terribly exotic, but British gardens can offer perfect growing conditions. During World War II, with supplies from India waning and fears that morale would slip if teapots ran dry, Winston Churchill suggested families tried growing their own.
Now there are two commercial tea plantations here: Tregothnan in Cornwall which sells its brews in Waitrose – and The Wee Tea Company in Perthshire, which supplies royal grocer Fortnum & Mason and the Dorchester Hotel.
Homegrown tea is gaining in popularity too, with sales of tea bushes rocketing.
James Wong, a panellist on Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time, has a mini tea plantation in his garden in Croydon, South London.
‘People think it’s tropical, but tea comes from cold, wet, miserable parts of China,’ James told listeners recently. ‘Here in Britain all tea needs to thrive is a sunny location and an ericaceous (slightly acidic) soil.’
So I decide to give it a go, and ordered two beautiful three-year-old tea bushes from the Trehane Nursery in Wimborne, Dorset. You could pick up any camellia variety at B&Q, but only the Camellia sinensis – meaning ‘from China’ – is used for tea.
How to tell if that camellia in your garden is the real deal? Look at its leaves. Those on my tea bushes are narrower and longer than the more common Camellia japonica. And, while the latter flowers in spring and summer, C. sinensis blossoms in autumn.
‘I wouldn’t recommend making tea from any old camellia. The leaves won’t poison you but they won’t taste nice,’ explains Simon Greenfield of Trehane Nursery, who often makes his own tea.
He adds: ‘You’d be amazed how many people around the country are making their own brews. The sinensis gives you lovely dark, glossy green leaves year-round. And, in the autumn, you are rewarded with delicate, scented white flowers.
‘Despite what people think, camellias are very hardy and can withstand pretty harsh conditions – although they favour partial sun and shade and lots of rain, particularly during the spring and summer growing season.
‘If you don’t have a greenhouse, you can even leave them outside in a tub in winter. Just wrap insulating material around the container to prevent the roots from freezing.’
And so I plant my sinensis, which are 2ft tall and covered in bright new leaves. Then I start on the tea-making process by picking all the succulent young leaves and tiny shoots.
These are almost apple green and much softer than the older, darker leaves, which would give an undrinkably bitter tea.
Luckily, plucking the shoots like this will encourage new growth or ‘flushes’ for future cuppas.
The total that I collect is 100g of leaves. This really isn’t much – it takes 100kg to produce just 22kg of tea commercially.
For green tea, all I’d have to do is roll the leaves gently between my hands to rupture the tissues to release the flavour. Then I’d dry them naturally until brittle. But what I really crave is a proper builder’s brew – much more complicated to make.
I start by spreading the leaves on a cake rack in my sunny kitchen. The mixture of warmth and oxygen should help break down the enzymes and draw out moisture. Ideally, the leaves need to shrink 30 per cent thanks to lost moisture, according to Simon. I check this by weighing them periodically, and 16 hours later they’re ready. But my leaves are still green and don’t look remotely like tea.
The next stage is rolling and kneading the leaves in a tea towel for ten minutes. This further breaks down the cells to help produce the distinctive flavour of tea. By the end my shoulders ache and my knuckles feel raw.
While my leaves are still green, they now smell ever so slightly like tea as I lay them out to dry further. After three hours the leaves are a copper colour, a sign that chemicals called flavonoids are being released and the leaves are well on the way to being drinkable. Best of all, the smell is unmistakable. It’s exactly like the inside of my tea caddy.
Now it’s into the oven at 203c for five minutes. Then I whack the heat down to 140c for an hour. The result? The leaves are bone-dry and crumbly. Disappointingly, despite all that kneading they are much larger than the loose tea I buy at Sainsbury’s, and the colour is a good few shades lighter than the rich gold I like. But I brew them up in a teapot nonetheless. Then I pour out my tea, straining it to remove the leaves.
It’s a little weak -and a little bitter. But all in all, not bad for a first attempt (particularly with a spoonful or two of sugar thrown in).
Tim Clifton, a professional tea taster, who works for retailers such as Tesco, says: ‘You’ll never be able to produce enough from your garden for more than a few cups. But you can make something relatively drinkable. ‘The climate in Britain is similar to growing areas in India and Kenya which provide most of our tea these days. There, new leaves are hand-plucked then air is blown over them to speed drying. ‘After 18-20 hours the leaves are fed into a rolling machine which cuts, tears and curls them. The leaves then oxidise for up to two hours until they turn brown.
‘Finally, after being passed through hot air dryers to reduce water content to 3 per cent, the leaves are officially black tea. They are packed into foil-lined sacks and shipped here for blending.’
Each plantation produces subtly different tea. A single PG Tips tea bag might contain a blend of up to 25 different varieties.
In Cornwall, Tregothnan Estate’s head gardener, Jonathon Jones, and his staff of 80 are busy producing ten tons of tea a year.
‘I’d worked in Japan,’ says Jonathon, a botanist. ‘It made me realise Tregothnan had just the right climate for tea bushes. We packaged our first tea in 2005 and have gone from strength to strength.’
At £4 for ten bags, Tregothnan is never going to outsell Tetley. But as the most British tea in history, it’s strong, refreshing and smooth.
