In other news…
The NZ Herald ran a nice little piece on local tea growers Zealong, for those who are not familiar with the story, here it is:
Tea grower brews plan for success
WHEN Tzu Chen first saw camellia trees flourishing in the Waikato, it seeded what could have been viewed as an impossible dream.
Chen, an avid tea lover, was struck by the similarities between the camellia and tea plants.
It got him thinking that tea could be grown in New Zealand, but with no prior knowledge of the industry he did not realise what a hard job that would be.
He thought it would be “easy to bring tea over and start growing and processing”.
He and his son Vincent Chen, who is the founder of Waikato-based Zealong Tea, New Zealand’s only tea producing company, went to Taiwan. They imported 1500 tea seedlings, but after quarantine for 10 months they were left with 130.
It was a hard road, with the first few years of propagation “basically 90 per cent fail”, said Zealong deputy general manager Gigi Crawford.
But with the help of a propagation specialist from Taiwan and plant scientist Jim Douglas, that failure rate became a “90 per cent success rate”, Crawford said.
For the rest of the article, click here. And if you haven’t enjoyed a cup of tea at Zealong, check it out.
Even though I am not a big tea drinker I certainly enjoy the tea at Camellia Teahouse.
It is a great place to take guests to enjoy the tea especially when the story is told to the folk who come from Taiwan or close by eg China. Great service and magnificent surroundings. Judy