Tucked into the food forest more as an experiment than a plan.
The Basics
Green tea comes from Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub in the family Theaceae — the same plant that black, oolong, and white teas all come from too, just processed differently.
Origin and Habitat
Native to East and Southeast Asia, particularly southwestern China, where it’s traditionally grown at higher elevations with cooler temperatures than most of our food forest offers.
What It Looks Like
A dense evergreen shrub with small, glossy, serrated leaves, kept pruned low in commercial production for easy hand or machine harvesting of the young leaf tips.
Uses and Flavor
We’re not exactly running a tea operation here, more just seeing what grows. Green tea is made by harvesting and quickly heating the young leaves to stop oxidation, which is what keeps the flavor lighter and grassier than black tea.
Growing It Here
This one is genuinely more curiosity than plan — we wanted to see whether it would grow at all in our conditions rather than setting out to produce tea at any real scale. We planted a few in the deep shade of the cacao orchard, and they’re growing, just very slowly given how little light gets down there. We do occasionally pick the young leaves, but not nearly enough yet to actually process a full batch of tea.
Pests and Diseases to Watch For
Nothing notable to report yet.
Kenta’s Take
Some plantings are about the harvest, and some are just about finding out if something will grow here at all. This is one of the second kind, and so far the answer is a slow, shaded yes.