Tea Garden Trips

I've always dreamed of taking a vacation to the Far East to visit a tea garden and to sample tea from the source. As many of you know, I'm somewhat of a tea snob. I like to inspect the leaves before I buy them. I'm precise about steeping times. I would feel uncomfortable purchasing tea bags. I like good quality tea and often have friends and family around the country purchase tea for me from trusted sources. It would be lovely to get one step closer to the process and visit an actual tea plantation.

Then earlier this week I learned that there's domestically produced tea in the US on a plantation that is open to the public. I read about it on the tea blog The Tea Scoop. The big tea bag purveyor Bigelow actually grows a certain line of tea in Charleston, South Carolina. They carry it under their American Classics line and it's available in loose form on their website. I haven't purchased any yet and I'm certainly curious about the quality and the leaf varietal. Regardless, it's nice to know that we can get some tea that doesn't have to travel halfway around the globe to get here. I've always wanted to check out Charleston sometime too, so a visit to a tea garden doesn't seem so far fetched now.