Tregothnan Tea

The first tea gardens in the UK yielded the first major crop for Britain’s first home-grown tea in 2005, creating the ultimate Britishness in every cup. The world’s first true British tea has been heralded as the ‘new Darjeeling.

Tregothnan is an expert Camellia grower. In fact, Tregothnan pioneered Camellia into Great Britain over two centuries ago. Camellia has thrived to such an extraordinary extent that the original introductions are now growing into their third century and still look youthful! Tregothnan is now the home of two of the RHS National Collections of Camellia – the Camellia reticulata and Camellia sasanqua.

For those of you that love tea as much as we do, you will know that tea is a type of Camellia – the Camellia sinensis. In the mid-nineties, the gardeners at Tregothnan suspected that because of the success of ornamental Camellia at Tregothnan, that the tea variety might also grow successfully in Tregothnan’s unique environment. Much research was undertaken including trips to tea regions around the world such as Darjeeling in India and Japan to understand more about the processes and pitfalls of growing and harvesting the precious leaves. Head Gardener, Jonathon Jones, completed a Nuffield Scholarship on the subject and then in 1999 the very first British tea bushes were planted.