Our very own hometown of Charleston, South Carolina is home to North America's ONLY Tea Plantation where tea (Camellia Sinensis) is grown, harvested and packaged, right there on site! We have visited this gorgeous plantation and seen first hand how they operate and it is impressive.

The next closest tea plantation is China, so why not enjoy fresh, organic, delicious tea grown right here in the US?

Here's a little bit of history about America's only tea garden:

In the late 1700s, tea bushes, also known as camellia sinensis, first arrived in the United States from China. Several attempts were made in South Carolina over the next 150 years to propagate and produce tea for consumption, but none were successful until 1888, when Dr. Charles Shepard founded the Pinehurst Tea Plantation in Summerville, SC.  But after his passing, his plantation closed and the tea plants grew wild for the next 45 years.

In 1963, a 127 acre potato farm located on Wadmalaw Island in the Lowcountry of South Carolina was purchased and Shepard's tea plants were transplanted from Pinehurst to the farm. The Charleston Tea Plantation is now owned and run by the Bigelow family and their plantation has become a living piece of American history!

Below, is a photo I took while visiting this incredible tea farm where an enormous, unique machine carefully harvests only the top young tea leaves for processing and packaging!