tea notes

These notes are maintained by Ben Discoe (who also has a tea farm)

< How to grow tea in Hawai‘i?

Overview

• A great general document is Specialty Crops for Pacific Island Agroforestry: Farm and Forestry Production and Marketing Profile for Tea (Camellia sinensis) (online) (direct link to PDF)
  • Produced in 2010, it neatly summarizes nearly everything about growing, processing and marketing tea in Hawai'i

Tea Books

• If you search Amazon.com for "tea cultivation", the most prominent book it finds is The Cultivation & Manufacture of Tea from 1878!
• It's amazing there is such little information about growing tea - at least in English.  Reportedly, there is plenty of tea literature out there in Japanese, Chinese, etc.  Research eventually turned up a few books:
  

  	Tea Cultivation : Comprehensive Treatise by N. Ghosh Hajra (India, 2001) 518 p., hardcover, colour photographs, ISBN 81-85860-57-2 Links for it on Bagchee ($76) Vedams ($94) and Amazon ($60) I ordered this book and received it in August 2006.  It covers growing (but not processing) tea.  It's great on history, cultivation, weeds, pests, fertilizers.  It attempts to cover the entire world of tea, with an emphasis on India.  It doesn't have any specific information about the popular Japanese and Chinese cultivars.  There is a brief chapter at the end on Organic Tea.  While there are shortcomings and a very large number of typos, this appears to be the only affordable book in the English language on growing tea.
  	Tea: Cultivation to Consumption, by K. C. Willson (UK, 1991) 768 p., hardcover, ISBN 0-412-33850-5 Link for it on Amazon UK (£285 ! around US$460 in 2009) I haven't ordered this book, which looks good, but expensive.  Rumor has it that both growing and processing are covered which would make it uniquely useful.
  	The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide (USA, 2007) 432 p., hardcover, ISBN 1580087450 at Amazon ($21) Although most of the book covers the usual history and brewing information, it does contain a little useful information on how different kinds of tea are processed.
  	Tea IPM Ecological Guide (Vietnam, 2001), by Michael R. Zeiss, Koen den Braber "A Trainers' Reference Guide on Crop Development, Major Agronomic Practices, and Disease and Insect Management in Small-holders' Tea Cultivation in northern Viet Nam" online as 18 pdf files, 292 pages Covers most of the same cultivation material as the Hajra book, but also has a chapter on processing and marketing.  It says: processing tea is like cooking a meal: you cannot learn it by reading about it, you have to learn by doing it, with an expert there to teach you.

• There is an industry analysis, called the Tea is "Hot" Report, 6th Edition published Spring 2006.  It calls itself the "Ultimate Tea Business Reference Guidebook" and costs $800.  As of 2010, it's out of print and there's no newer version.
• CTAHR booklet: Small-scale Tea Growing and Processing in Hawaii (pdf)
  by Francis Zee, Dwight Sato, Lisa Keith, Peter Follett, and Randall T. Hamasaki, 16 pages, September 2003
• There exists a book called 'Tea Growers Handbook' which is the main book on growing tea in Africa.  It was published by the Tea Research Institute of East Africa (TRI-EA) in 1965, 1966, 1969, and 1986.  I have not been able to find any source for it.
• Another historical book, 'Tea : From Grower to Consumer' by A. Ibbetson, reportedly covers growing and shipping tea from Asia and India from 1900 to 1933.
• Other recent tea books are very rare.  I have yet to locate a copy of:
  • Barua, D.N. 1989. Science and practice in tea culture. Tea Research Association, Calcutta, India. 509 pp.
  • Bonheure, D. 1990. Tea. In the series entitled The Tropical Agriculturalist. Macmillan Education Ltd. London, England. 102 pp.

Magazines

• Tea and Coffee Trade Journal.
  • Every issue has at least some information on tea production or marketing, and the articles for older issues are online.  Subscription costs $30-50/year.
  • I haven't really looked through it, perhaps there is useful information in there.

Hawaii Tea Press Coverage

• West Hawaii Today, June 6, 2010: Kona Cuppa: Tea industry budding on Big Isle
• West Hawaii Today, May 30, 2010: Growing tea in coffee country can be done
• New York Times, August 5, 2009: From the Land of Kona, a New Brew
• West Hawaii Today, June 28, 2009: Tea Time in Hawaii
• Hana Hou! October/November 2008: The Archipelago of Tea
• Fortune Small Business, April 2007? article Tasting Hawaii about Ag Tourism, 9 pages
  • pages 5 and 6 describes an ag-tourism visit to Eva and Chiu's
• Hawaii Tribune Herald, March 20, 2007: Tea growing in Hawaii is becoming a true industry.
  • by Audrey Wilson, in the Section C Food column, includes recipe for Tea-Smoked Duck Breast
• Hawaii Island Journal, November 18-December 1, 2006: Tea Culture: Hawai'i's other brewed beverage
  • by Sonia Martinez. Mentions Eva and Chiu, Mike Riley, Mike&Rob, results of October 2006 Cupping.
• Honolulu Advertiser, October 8, 2006: Farming to be required on Kaua'i subdivision 'estates' describes more about the huge Kealanani tea project.
• Honolulu Star Bulletin, August 23, 2006: Kauai tea time: A proposed 2,021-acre development on Kauai will include a tea plantation
• Honolulu Star Bulletin, March 13 2006: Big Island trying to grow top-quality tea
• Hawaii Tribune Herald, March 5, 2006: A Spot of Tea (paid archive access only)
• BusinessWeek, September 22, 2005:  Reading the Tea Leaves in Hawaii
• Honolulu Advertiser, April 25, 2005: Hawai'i tea growers are 'learning as we go'
• Honolulu Advertiser, February 8, 2003: Hope rides on growing state's cup of tea

Academic Papers

• It seems there is no tea-specific academic journal.  Many tea papers appear in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.  For example:
  • Metabolomics Analysis Reveals the Compositional Differences of Shade Grown Tea (South Korea, 2009)

Video

• Samovar videos, August 2009
  • Erick Gets a Taste of Hawaii-Grown Tea
  • Hawaii-Grown Tea Comes to Samovar and the USA
  • Hawaii-Grown Tea: An Interview with Tea Farmer Eva Lee

Blogs

• our blog, Eggs & Tea
• Living on a Hawaiian Nature Tea Farm
  • great posts e.g. Organic Tea Growing Guide for Home Gardeners in Hawaii