Grow Your Own Tea: The Complete Guide to Cultivating, Harvesting, and Preparing Contributor(s): Parks, Christine (Author) , Walcott, Susan M (Author)

This comprehensive guide details how to grow and process real tea (including white, green, oolong, and black).

"Plant a tea plant and watch it grow! Grow Your Own Tea is truly a masterpiece how-to guide to cultivating and enjoying the sacred leaf. It will delight even the armchair gardener and casual tea lover." --James Norwood Pratt, author of James Norwood Pratt's Tea Dictionary

Tea lovers, make a fresh pot, sit down with this delightful guide, and discover the joys of growing and processing your tea at home. Tea farmer Christine Parks and enthusiast Susan Walcott cover it all from growing tea plants and harvesting leaves, to the distinct processes that create each tea's signature flavors.

In this comprehensive handbook, you'll discover tea's ancient origins, learn about the single plant that produces white, green, oolong, and black teas, and discover step-by-step instructions for plucking, withering, and rolling. Simple recipes that highlight the flavor of tea and creative uses for around the home round out this must-read for tea fans.

Christine Parks, together with her husband, David, developed Camellia Forest Tea Gardens in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The Parks family has worked for decades collecting, propagating, and testing camellia cultivars for hardiness--today Christine and David are partners in Tea Flower Research, which has formalized the family's work. She was chair of the Tea Committee of the American Camellia Society, and a founding member of the US League of Tea Growers and representative for southeastern growers.

Susan Morrison Walcott is an emerita professor of geography at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has sipped soup-like buttery tea in Tibet and visited Hangzhou's tea gardens and tea museum during a research trip to China's high technology parks--a geographer's curiosity leads down more roads than cat has lives. She is a founding member of the US League of Tea Growers and has published several articles on tea grown in the United States in academic journals.

"Plant a tea plant and watch it grow! Grow Your Own Tea is truly a masterpiece how-to guide to cultivating and enjoying the sacred leaf. Christine and Susan have planted a landmark in our horticultural history and a milestone on America's path to becoming a tea-consuming society. It will delight even the armchair gardener and casual tea lover." --James Norwood Pratt, author of James Norwood Pratt's Tea Dictionary

"The guide of guides to the cultivation of tea." --Booklist