Tea

Tea is a slow-growing, low-maintenance evergreen shrub that tolerates heat and drought better than many other camellias and can be grown in full sun or partial shade. It is typically raised from root cuttings or seed and set out as a transplant into acidic, well-drained soil kept consistently moist. For strong tea production, plants are pruned back to 4-5 feet just before spring growth begins, encouraging the flush of new shoots that will later be picked.

Tea is susceptible to a number of viruses and fungal diseases, including dieback, cankers, flower blight, and root rot. Scale insects, aphids, planthoppers, and spider mites also attack the plant, and these pests become especially problematic when it is stressed. The shrub is mildly resistant to deer browsing.

Leaves are picked as they emerge starting in early spring, with different grades of leaf destined for different teas: the smallest young leaves and leaf buds go into green tea, the buds alone into white tea, and the larger, older leaves into oolong and black tea. After picking, the leaves are processed and oxidized to varying degrees, a step that determines whether the finished tea is white, green, oolong, or black.

Culinary: Tea leaves and buds are dried and processed to make the brewed beverage known as tea, produced in white, green, oolong, and black forms; the plant's fragrant flowers are also a source of edible oil.

Medicinal: In China, tea was first recorded as a medicinal beverage in the 3rd century AD.

Ornamental: The shrub's dense dark-green foliage and fragrant flowers also make it useful in the landscape for screening, foundation planting, hedging, or growing as a patio or container plant.

Tea's wild ancestor is native to the borderlands of southwestern China, northeastern India, and northern Myanmar, with China's south-central and southeastern regions cited as its country of origin. The earliest documented use of the plant dates to China, where tea drinking was recorded as early as 59 BC, and its cultivation and consumption later spread across Asia and eventually to Europe through merchant trade.