"Rebecca Ore" > wrote in message

> Doesn't explain wild picked Chinese tea

That's a very little part of Chinese tea production.

> -- I rather wonder if this isn't
> a matter of trying to grow for maximum production.

Xishuanbanna is the jungle...so I guess that unless you're also in a similar
jungle, your tea bushes don't grow that naturally. Also, I don't remember
exactly, but I think they told me they needed 7 to 10 years to get an adult
tea bush in Uji. Wild tea bushes are probably picked later.
And that's not the same tea. The varieties used to do sencha don't exist as
wild, and those for gyokuro have to be cultivated under sorts of tents.
There are teas that were cultivated and went back to wilderness, they look
different too.

> Seems like this could be done in Mexico, except that people aren't tea
> drinkers there.

They'd produce for export, but they are not tea farmers and won't learn
overnight.

> Someone posted a year or so ago about his grandmother in Japan making
> her own green tea on a household scale.

You should ask Crymad. I think his in-laws do it, as they live in a major
tea production area in Kyushu. So maybe every household does some because
that's there job or that used to be their parents' job. ... That doesn't
mean that's little work and little skill. I think they have it in a
tea-garden, not in their backyard between the carrots and the tomatoes.
When there was not much trade in Japan, in areas away from tea production,
they'd grow tea in small quantities. It's uncommon now (people do it for the
historic experience) and what I have got -for as expensive as top grade
sencha - were bancha or a disappointing green tea (yanagi cha) that nobody
wants a second cup of. I'll try others, when I get more money to waste.

> I'd been thinking about getting some Camellias, but more the winter
> hardy ornamental varieties than tea plants.
.....
> Philadelphia isn't upland enough, though.

I guess you could* cultivate many sorts of teabushes over there, if you
place them close enough to a building so the earth doesn't freeze in deep.
In Korea, they can have winters like Canada, and they grow tea. They
protected all sorts of plants with wrappings in winter but I didn't go to
dig under the snow to see Christmas tea trees.

*You could if the FDA letted you import and grow what you bring back from
trips abroad for your experiments.

Kuri