Wadmalaw Island, SC

A Smooth Sip of Southern Flavor

In restaurants and homes across the South, a pitcher of iced tea accompanies almost every meal. Prior to 1987, every bit of that tea was grown outside the United States.

That’s the year Bill Hall and Mack Fleming became the only commercial tea proprietors in North America. They bought 127 acres on rural Wadmalaw Island near Charleston, S.C., converting a former Lipton research site into a bonafide tea farm.

Both men were already steeped in the tea industry. Hall is a third-generation tea-taster, a designation earned in England through a four-year apprenticeship. Fleming is a tea horticulturist, employed by Lipton before partnering with Hall. Working on the Wadmalaw farm, Fleming helped Lipton develop a tea-harvesting machine that precisely strips tea bushes of the new leaves used to make tea. The tea bush, or camellia sinensis plant, is an evergreen shrub 4-6 feet tall with fragrant white flowers in fall. The mechanical harvester does the work of 500 people and is credited with making tea production affordable in America.

The dainty image of tea sipping belies the hard work involved in producing the beverage. “You don’t get hands like these from sitting at a desk,” Hall jokes, gesturing with his rough and calloused fingers. “We’re not shirt-and-tie owners. We’re hands-on owners.”

Leaves are harvested every 15 to 18 days, May through October. The fresh tea is then placed in specially designed withering troughs to dry. The following day, the leaves are chopped and spread on mesh cloths for 90 minutes, while the green leaves oxidize and darken. Next, the tea is heated to 248 degrees for a half-hour to seal the flavor and further reduce moisture content. Finally, stems and fibers are removed, and the batch is placed in large storage bins.

Because weather affects tea the same as any other crop, tea makers blend different batches to produce a consistent flavor and quality. Hall determines how much of each yield goes into a particular blend.

In addition to a “light, bright” black tea that can be served hot or cold, the Charleston Tea Plantation produces Earl Grey and raspberry teas, which are flavored with oils.

October to May is spent mixing, packaging, cleaning machines, and maintaining the plants.

“Tea is probably one of the best crops that could be grown, because you don’t till the soil; it’s planted and that’s where it stays,” Hall explains. “A tea plant will live for 600 years, and there’s no soil erosion, you’re not using insecticides or fungicides, and you’re putting 5,200 oxygen-producing plants on every acre of land.” He notes the hot, humid summers and sandy soils of the Carolina Lowcountry are ideal for growing tea.

Still, high labor costs, lack of quality plant material (bushes take five years to mature), and the rarity of tea horticulturists and tea tasters in America have kept other farmers from tackling tea. The most successful previous attempt was an experimental farm operated in nearby Summerville from 1888 to 1915. When Lipton moved into Wadmalaw in 1960, researchers salvaged a few of the remaining Summerville plants and used them to develop high quality strains suited to the local climate.

The tea plantation’s American Classic Tea is sold in supermarkets across the south, as well as through the mail. As the official “Hospitality Beverage of South Carolina,” local establishments such as the Charleston Grill and Charleston Place’s Lobby Lounge serve American Classic.

“I think it’s important for chefs to support local purveyors, especially when they provide such a high quality product,” says Chef Bob Waggoner of the Grill.

Hall says his locally grown tea is superior to imported teas because it can be on the shelf within a month of harvest, as opposed to months and years later. Unlike wine, tea quality declines with time, becoming more bitter and less like the “smooth and mellow” ideal.

As more people become fans of homegrown tea, Hall plans to expand his market and product line. Ultimately, he says he would love to see the 127 acres turn into 25,000 acres: “That would be enough to supply America with all the tea they need.”

Kara Carden is a regular contributor to American Profile.

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