Tea plants

[missyvortexdv]

I was wondering if anyone has had any experience growing tea plants. I'd heard you can grow Roobios/redbush or Chinese tea plant (Camellia sinansis) at home, drying leaves for tea, though they take 3 years to establish before leaves suitable for tea can be picked.

Has anyone tried growing them in the UK or knows of any places that stock the seeds

Comments

[bailey36]

lol, I bought some seeds, they cost $7.00 for 10 seeds and none of them germinated, sigh.

[missyvortexdv]

That's fairly pricy. I wonder what conditions they need for germination, similar to chillis (heated) or maybe just longer. I will have to check it out if I locate some seeds.

[bailey36]

you need to score them and soak them, I did. and tried to start them in soil. no go.

[missyvortexdv]

I found somewhere online last night that was suggesting they don't like to be too warm and need more acidic soil of ph5-6 and may take a whole month to germinate.

[mallt]

I Googled "growing tea in UK" (after I Googled growing it in Canada, which is where I live!) and found that there's a commercial place in Cornwall producing tea: http://www.englishtea.org.uk/tregothnan_english_tea.html. I also read that http://www.jungleseeds.co.uk was a source for seeds but I didn't go & investigate.

[missyvortexdv]

Thanks for the info - hadn't heard of that place, looks quite interesting if I ever go to cornwall. Thanks for the other link too, had a check out and they don'thave plants but will have to investigate the seeds for tea seeds another evening as that site is hard to navigate...

EDIT found it, http://www.jungleseeds.com/SeedShop/Novelty.htm

Has anyone tried growing them in the UK

[gillyp]

Winston Churchill for one. :) Well, not him personally, but he had a feasibility study done that found it was perfectly possible to grow it - the UK having more or less Himalayan weather conditions - but not in sufficient quantity.

I don't know where you'd buy plants but I expect a bit of judicious googling would turn somewhere up.

[rhysande]

Camellia sinensis is hardy down to a temperature of 20F/-6C. If your winters are colder, you'll need to container this shrub and either grow it indoors or bring it indoors for the winter.

I found several vendors (All the nurseries I checked are in Cornwall, which probably indicates that cold hardiness in the areas of Great Britain to the north of Cornwall is an issue.) by using "camellia sinensis England nursery" as my Google search criteria.

[missyvortexdv]

I'm not actually sure how cold it gets in my region, I wouldn't have thought that much below -6C but I do have a conservatory so bringing inside is an option.

Typing in "cornwall cammellia sinesis nursery" I've found at least one place that sells the plants for about £15 + p&p which is not too bad so thanks for the headsup about that - had no idea there was a tea estate there.

I shall have to do more googling to find seeds other than on ebay, Thompson and Morgan apparently do them but place I found so far was out of stock on the seeds.

[angelchrome]

Let us know how the experiment goes! I'm in Cambridge and I fear it might be a bit too cold here without a greenhouse.