Florida has several crops it is famous for — cattle, citrus, strawberries — but tea leaves? Not so much. But scientist at the University of Florida are trying to see if this could be a possibility in the future.
Growing Florida Tea Plants
University of Florida researchers are investigating whether you can grow tea plants in the Sunshine State. Their findings are from a yearslong trial at the UF/IFAS Plant Science Research and Education Unit in Citra.
For the trial, scientists tested seven tea “accessions” during years three to five of their growth, which includes the time the plants are expected to reach harvesting maturity. Researchers use the term “accessions” for any plant that does not yet have a cultivar name in the United States.
“We started with eight varieties, and one of them had 100% mortality,” said Brantlee Richter, assistant professor in the UF/IFAS department of plant pathology and member of the research team. “We put weed cloth in to manage the intense weed pressure here in Florida and used a drip irrigation system, but otherwise, we didn’t do anything to baby these plants. They were out there in the harsh Florida sun, and we even had a hurricane remnant hit the plot during the study period. Even tropical storm-force winds didn’t seem to faze the plants or cause them to lose a lot of leaves.”
Despite being commonly grown in many countries around the world, tea is still considered a specialty in commercial production for the United States. That’s why obtaining plants for the trial proved challenging.
“We actually found a few of the selections from camellia ornamental nurseries,” Richter said. “Tea is a camellia species, but it’s not sold or produced at the scale of commercial production.”
Tea varieties, she explained, derive from two lineages: A Chinese line that’s more sun-adapted and an Indian line that’s more shade-adapted. For Florida, the team concluded, plants from the shade-adapted line may be better suited to the fickle climate. The best-performing plants in this study overall were from a variety called Fairhope.
Bala Rathinasabapathi, a UF/IFAS professor of horticultural sciences and another researcher on the project, notes this study marks a “starting point” for learning which varieties will grow best in Florida.
“We feel that North-Central Florida is pretty good in terms of climate for growing tea, and tea likes acidic soil, just as citrus does,” Rathinasabapathi said. “In South Florida, we would have to do more experimentation to find out whether tea can grow in a truly tropical region with harsher temperature conditions.”
The UF/IFAS tea research continues, including exploring shade production practices and breeding new varieties that may hold the best potential for Florida’s conditions.
“It’s not impossible to grow tea in different regions of Florida,” Rathinasabapathi said. “I think eventually we’ll find material that would suit different climatic zones.”
