DIY Tea
Growing your own coffee can take anything from 3-8 years…is relatively pointless unless you live nearer the equator (the soils all wrong and coffee plants like it warm) and takes an age to create a decent blend and roast…coffee might be one thing left to the professionals.
Tea on the other hand is not so time consuming and slightly easier to get along with.
True an undisturbed tea plant can actually become a 50 foot tea tree but it is usually pruned off at about waist height for easy picking.
Tea plants (Camellia Sinensis) is an evergreen shrub that can survive in tropical or subtropical climates, some varieties can even tolerate marine climates and are cultivated as far north as Pembrokeshire in England and Washington in the United States.
So easier to grow but easier to enjoy?
Pull some leaves off and pour boiling water on them, basically, with some carefully drying first.
After picking, the leaves will quickly wilt unless they are dried immediately as the chlorophyll breaks down and tannins are released and the leaves get progressively darker.
In tea processing, the darkening is stopped at a predetermined stage by heating, which halts the process.
The only thing that will go wrong with your tea is if you don’t dry it properly, it will go mouldly and no one wants a mouldy brew.
Tea is readily available of the internet, a few pounds for a few seeds so in the interest of science we at Caffe Society have purchased 5 and will be endeavoring to grow a desktop tea shrub.
Watch this space and we’ll report our success!
(Hopefully.)