The Argyll cuppas fit for a president
THE UK consumes 165 million cups of tea every day, mostly grown in the humid climes of Sri Lanka, India or China.
But now a few island crofters on Lismore, Mull and Arran are diversifying into tea plantations and even spreading their love of tea to The White House in Washington.
Clare Haworth and Mike Hyatt, who run the Lismore Bunkhouse and Campsite at Beleveolan Croft, started their new venture called Isle of Lismore Teas last year, successfully growing Scotland’s first sencha tea: Japan’s most popular green tea, where processed whole leaves are infused in hot water.
‘We are known as a fertile island,’ Mike said. ‘We are looking to develop crops that are high value but low weight. There’s no point growing potatoes when you can buy them on the mainland. This is something we are experimenting with. Against all the odds, it has grown reasonably well.’
Clare and Mike planted the hardiest of the only two varieties of tea, Camelia sinensis, which can cope with temperatures as low as minus 15C for long periods. The stress of Scotland’s relatively hostile climate is said to give tea leaves a sweet flavour, though it makes for a shorter, less handsome tree which takes longer to grow.
‘The bushes are still very small, about knee-high,’ Mike said, ‘but they pretty much look after themselves. It is not without its challenges. My biggest challenge is the voles. They burrow underground through the roots. Wind is the major issue; temperature is not. We have planted hedging to give them shelter.’
Last year’s yield was very small, between 200g and 300g harvested from 500 plants, laid in lazy beds to give them the drainage they need.
Mike explained: ‘We pick the top two leaves and central leaf, which is like a needle, in mid to late May, then three or four pickings during the year, every six weeks with a new growth coming through. It is all about how you process it.’
The fresh tea leaves are processed into sencha tea by the Fife-based Wee Tea Company, which sells home-grown teas from around Scotland. Seven years ago Tam O’Braan sowed Scotland’s first tea plantation, The Wee Tea Plantation, 750m up in Highland Perthshire on a former sheep farm at Dalreoch near Dunkeld. It isn’t so wee anymore, growing from 2,000 to 14,000 plants.
There are now more than a dozen tea growers in Scotland, including Dalguise tea in Perthshire, Guisachan tea in Invernesshire, Grey Mare’s tea in Peeblesshire and Orkney teas. But Argyll can boast one more plantation: Isle of Mull Tea.
Reverend Liz Gibson, a Church of Scotland minister, and her husband Martyn, a tour guide at Duart Castle, harvested Scotland’s first matcha (a fine powdered green tea) last year, picked from 100 or so bushes on their tiny 10-acre croft. Their first tea, Isle of Mull ‘Scottish Antlers’ stem tea, was presented to President Barack Obama as a gift from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during her visit to the US in 2015.
The Isle of Arran Tea also had its first pluck in May last year of roasted, nutty Japanese green tea Hojicha from its plantation at Whiting Bay.
Although India, Sri Lanka, Kenya and China grow 75 per cent of the world’s tea, Scotland has long been involved in the industry. Clippers were built on the River Clyde – Cutty Sark, launched in 1869, brought tea back from the Far East – and Scots planted most of Darjeeling’s tea estates.
Kincardineshire’s James Taylor and the Glaswegian Sir Thomas Lipton created the Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) tea industry, famously planting the first seedlings of Ceylon tea in the Loolecondera estate in 1867.