On Your Farm

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On Your Farm: Dartmoor Tea Harvest

Dartmoor Tea Harvest

BBC Radio 4 - On Your Farm, Dartmoor Tea Harvest

How a late-night internet purchase led to the creation of Devon’s first tea estate.

It's harvest time at Dartmoor Estate Tea.  Rachel Lovell helps pick one of Britain's unlikeliest crops.

Few people would think of Dartmoor when they consider the farming story behind their morning brew, but not so for Jo Harper. Five years ago he took a punt and bought 1000 tea plant seeds from an online auction site late one winter night. A disastrous first germination left him and partner Kathryn dusting themselves off and determined to try again, and what has since unfolded brought about the establishment of Dartmoor Estate Tea.

The couple had no experience of farming any type of crop commercially, let alone tea, which it turns out is not so straightforward. Preparing the leaves to make the tea itself is an art form in itself too, as they later discovered. Rachel Lovell joins them as they pluck their first significant harvest, and hears how their journey has taken them from Dartmoor to Nepal, through snow storms, tea ceremonies and meditative picking, to a deep reverence for this extraordinary drink.

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