Tea garden for loose leaf teas?

[MamaHawk]

Hi all!

If I were to create a garden specifically for making tea, what could I include in it? What should I avoid? Is this worth effort at all?

[PHiGGY]

I don’t know what zone you’re in, but I have Yaupon holly and Yerba trees for tea. Regular teas have tannins that disagree with me.

[MamaHawk]

I’m in 6B, I hadn’t even thought of trees!

[zone7a]

Lots of plants can be used as teas that you may not traditionally consider as tea. I’m growing NJ tea for both nitrogen fixing and it’s edible properties

[snarfing]

Theres another thread about tea gardens with a bunch of info

Tea garden

One of my focuses for my garden projects is to grow leaves for teas. True Camellia teas probably aren’t happening here, but I have lots of other options. I already have NJ tea, which I love, as well as bee balm, sweetfern, anise hyssop, fragrant roses, and sweet goldenrod. I’ll of course be adding some of the more common herbs (mint, chamomile, etc) and probably licorice. I also like adding leaves from Rubus species to other teas, if I can find a spot for them. Eastern Hemlock (decidedly differ…

For me id make sure to have rose hips, new jersey tea, stevia (to sweeten the tea), and a mint of some sort. Those are my main faves

[PHiGGY]

Along the lines of other suggestions, chamomile and roselle (for cranberry flavors).

[Bakeapple]

I have a couple areas in my garden devoted to a mix of tea plants and culinary herbs. I don’t have very much space, so if there’s a tea plant I want to drink but that isn’t massively productive in a small space it’s usually something I collect in the wild or buy as tea.

I’ve found the best plant to grow myself has been mint. I grow spearmint, peppermint, apple mint, Corsican mint, ginger mint, chocolate mint, and an unknown variety that smells like basil. If I had to grow only one type it would be spearmint. It is very sweet and fragrant without much bite. The only other mint I drink as tea is peppermint, which is very sharp and is good alone or mixed with spearmint. I’ve gotten a better yield per sq foot with mint than anything else. It’s also nice to have in the garden because you can dry it within minutes of harvest, which means a nicer finished tea. The best mint tea I’ve ever had is the spearmint I grew and dried myself.

I also grow lemon balm, though I don’t like the flavour much so I rarely use it. I keep a permanent pot of lemon verbena, which I take inside for the winter. It is only enough for a dozen cups of tea a year, but the flavour is incredible and I use fresh leaves a lot for cooking.

I make a lot of tea from wild plants, which I can get in larger quantities than I could grow in my small garden. I recently tried powdered aronia, which I don’t grow because it’s very common in the wild here, but I know a lot of people find it productive enough to grow themselves. I also drink wild blackberry leaf tea, which tastes like green tea and isn’t caffeinated but is energizing. You can also oxidize the leaves by crushing them with a rolling pin and leaving them under a damp towel before drying, then it tastes like black tea. I collect Labrador tea, and wintergreen, which are too slow growing to get much from in the garden. Also sweetfern (comptonia peregrina) which I dry when I get it in the wild, but also keep in the garden and use fresh from there. Also inkberry holly (Ilex glabra), which is a a common wild relative (in my area) of yaupon.

I’ve tried growing camellia sinensis, but it never got very big, then died last winter after a very dry fall.

[MamaHawk]

Thanks everyone! @snarfing I’ll look at that thread! @PHiGGY I love cranberry, excellent info! @Bakeapple I totally agree about mint - I have a patch of spearmint and regular (?) mint, but I would LOVE chocolate mint. I didn’t know apple mint was an option, but that sounds good too!