Tea Production in South Carolina

Tea has been grown in the southeastern United States for over 200 years, but commercial success has, until recently, eluded a succession of plantation entrepreneurs despite the favorable physical setting. The labor-intensive nature of tea cultivation and processing, combined with poor transportation access for market distribution from the South, required a daunting creativity. Technological innovations by individual owners, and integration of this region into national and global production chains, hold promise for the long-elusive addition of a popular crop to the list of Southern agricultural outputs.