Just as some tea drinkers don’t realise that tea belongs to the Camellia family, there are Earl Grey fans who don’t realise that the scent wafting from their cup comes from bergamot. The tree that produces this fruit is thought to originate from a hybrid between bitter orange and citron, and the young plant is often grafted onto bitter orange rootstocks. The most prized bergamot comes from Calabria (Italy).
9 February 2010
Sometimes you don’t even need a seed to produce a tea plant, in fact it’s very common not to. Instead, you take cuttings from a carefully chosen parent plant. You…
13 April 2012
Tea has a number of enemies, and among them is the hairy caterpillar. This one may look rather shy, but don’t be fooled. This delicate creature is less timid when…
2 November 2011
There are two ways of growing a new tea plant. You can plant a seed, or a cutting. Here, Rajiv Gupta, grower at the Tumsong Tea Estate, explains how the…
30 January 2010
How could I have showed you the seed of the tea plant and not talked about the tea flower? So here it is, and if you’re thinking that it looks…
