In 2016, I planted 20 tea trees behind the family house in Corrèze. In 2022, I planted 50 new tea bushes on a shady plot. Today I am making my first green tea.
In 2016, I had selected 2 cultivars (sinensis and assamica types), and positioned them to test the impact of exposure and semi-mountain climate, convinced by the quality of the acidic soil of the Corrèze for the growth of tea plants. 7 years later, out of the 20 plants initially planted, 13 have survived, especially those that were the most protected from the sun and wind. I was able to make my first spring harvest in 2022: 100g of fresh tea. And this spring, I tested the green tea making on the first harvest of the season which took place at the very beginning of May.
Tea cultivation is growing again in Europe and particularly in France. Weizi and Denis Mazerolle, at the initiative of the association Tea Grown in Europe of which I am a member since 2018, and founders of Filleule des Fées have advised me for the second stage of my tea plantation in Corrèze. I planted last year, still in a family spirit and with the help of Henri, a local farmer, 50 new tea trees on a plot of land that had been unused for more than 20 years and where there was no tea plantation.The local flora has gradually taken over from a meadow to a shrubby wasteland with the young growth of oaks, chestnut trees, hawthorns, .... that I intend to preserve. I have selected 3 origins: tea trees from Nepal, China and Brittany. Then 3 years old, I placed them in shady areas of the plot in 3 different places. Between the heat wave of this summer 2022 and one of the zones being on the passage of a family of wild boars, I lost a little less than half of them. The ones that held up best were the Nepalese tea trees and the Chinese cultivar. The next planting stage will be this fall, and then in 2024.
A tea growing path that I wish to develop in an agroforestry spirit ;-)
I will continue to keep you informed of the progress!
