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 Has anyone in Houston tried growing tea (Camellia sinensis ) plants?

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dragonfly
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dragonfly


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Has anyone in Houston tried growing tea (Camellia sinensis ) plants? Empty
PostSubject: Has anyone in Houston tried growing tea (Camellia sinensis ) plants?   Has anyone in Houston tried growing tea (Camellia sinensis ) plants? EmptySun Oct 10, 2010 10:01 pm

I had considered growing blueberries in the past, but they suposedly need slightly acidic soil and I never bothered to try to set that up. But recently I was reading that tea plants (Camellia sinensis ) also like acidic soil and some shade. So I decided it might be fun to try growing some blueberries interspersed with tea plants, the blueberries would shade the tea plants. I got some of both plants and added some peat moss to the dirt around them. Will see how it works out. Has anyone else tried this?

Also got a yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria) the only native North American plant (and native to Texas) that contains caffine. Tea can also be made from their leaves. Yerba mate is the caffine producing South American relative of yaupon.
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dragonfly
Grape Vine
Grape Vine
dragonfly


Posts : 112
Points : 260
Join date : 2010-06-04

Has anyone in Houston tried growing tea (Camellia sinensis ) plants? Empty
PostSubject: Camellia sinensis and yaupon tea plants still alive soon I will try to harvest and process...   Has anyone in Houston tried growing tea (Camellia sinensis ) plants? EmptyFri May 27, 2011 12:12 pm

The tea plants (Camellia sinensis and yaupon) made it through the winter and are putting out new leaves. Remains to be seen if the Camellia sinensis will make it through the summer!

We got a few blueberries from the bushes, the birds got a lot more!

Here is a link describing how to simply harvest and process Camellia sinensis tea leaves:
Processing tea leaves

The article also has a nice diagram showing how to process to get the different types of teas (green, black, etc.)

I got my Camellia sinensis plants from Logee's.

Here are some links for making yaupon tea:
http://beaufortinlet.blogspot.com/p/yaupon-tea.html
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100408/NEWS/100409426

Someone who describes making yaupon tea:
http://www.cobraheadllc.com/blog/2011/05/17/yaupon-tea/
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