Charleston Tea Plantation
This past November, 2018, Alex, Morgan, and Bristsin Haas traveled to Charleston, S.C., to visit the Charleston Tea Plantation. The 127 acre property is currently growing 93 acres of tea. On site, you can visit a gift shop before going on a factory tour. There, you can see the withering beds where the freshly harvested tea leaves are dried to a desired percentage. There is an oxidation bed where the leaves turn color. You can also take a trolley around the plantation with a tour guide. There was a large, man-operated harvesting machine currently at work; driving though the tea plantation's perfectly manicured rows of tea plants. There is a green house on site where trimmings of the current tea plants are kept to grow until they are mature enough to be planted out in the fields.