USA Grown Tea Fundraiser
**Update 7/16/2015 Thanks for y’alls support! I’ve taken down the link though for now as its been a while since we have had some rain, and I just plucked the last of the plants. I’ll probably start taking new custom orders in mid August.
Hey Steepster!
TL;DR We need money and feedback on our 100% Florida Grown Tea.
Some of y’all might remember that I started growing tea in Florida a couple years ago. The plants are doing great, which means it is time for Stage 2!
We are going to start prepping our 10 acres for tea. But we need shade trees and ground cover first. And to really get a proper nursery going. We now have 2,000+ seedlings (and some of y’all got those seedlings at the Midwest Tea Fest) in addition to the plants already in the ground…and we also need to source tea equipment. (Plucking machine, roller, and dryer). All of this adds up very quickly to a budget headache! (Former starving student here).
I’ve started a fundraiser to help get this going. Its just on our website .
We are asking for 35$ for a personalized micro lot of tea. I’ve tried to keep the price as low as I can to make it more accessible. But please do keep in mind this is a fundraiser/charitea.
What you’ll get:
-Between 4-8 grams of tea. Maybe more depending on how the summer rains work for us here!
-Close to complete control over your tea.
-You will decide if it is White, Green, or Black.
-The level of plucking. Only tips, Bud + 1 leaf, Bud + 2 leaf, Bud + 3 Leaf
– If you want a hard or soft roll
-Lower temperature or higher temperature firing
-Pictures of every stage of the process (and your choice of e-mail updates)
-Our gratitude! (And that you will be supporting a unique 100% USA growing tea project!)
What we get:
-Practice
-Capital (Seriously, estimates on the equipment are coming back in the thousands)
-Hopefully making some new tea friends around the US :) Please share this unique experience.
I know 35$ might be out of some peoples budget, but please share the word! Or buy our other teas. Pretty much everything we earn is going to this dream.
You can see some pictures of the tea plants on our Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/SingleOriginTeas
I think this is awesome, James. I’m so in. :)
Hey Nicole, just wanted to let you know that your tea is picked and is now withering.
it may have withered too much, (When Beverly worked for the Amba Tea Estate she used to set timers to go off every 2 hours in the night to check on her leaves…I’m not quite there yet!), but am going to roll it now :)
This is really cool. What a unique opportunity. I LOVED the tea you brought and let us hand-roll from Midwest Tea Fest. Mine turned out a really wonderful black tea and it had a really interesting taste that included elements of black, white, and green. I think this is a great idea and hopefully I’ll be able to chip in and order a batch. :D
If we time travel to January I will pay it forward $200 if you’re willing to send it to Steepster people that don’t have the money… but, we can’t time travel.
Therefore, I must ask: What is the cutoff date to help you out? I’m kindof in the negative twelve hundred dollar range for my tea budget right now :(
haha, don’t worry. We need to raise 60k+…so it will be an on going campaign!
I haven’t contributed to your campaign, but I did just write about it in a tea review I posted to my site: http://booksandtea.ca/2015/07/tea-review-jun-chiyabari-second-flush-nepal-by-single-origin-teas/
This is probably going to be the first thing I buy after I move (stupid expensive house switching!)
Also, my little tea plant is doing awesome and says hello :)
That’s great! I’ve been working on potting mine into bigger pots, but ran out of money for their soil! Hopefully they won’t hate me too much for keeping them in such small pots for so long.
I will be repotting mine after I move, and hopefully raising a few seeds I was given as a gift, no idea how that will go!
I should get a picture tomorrow when the lighting is better to show you how Teaberius is doing ;)
That’s great! keep the seeds moist and humid. I have a friend that swears by germinating her seeds in composting tea leaves. (which I think works because of the warmth/humidity).
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