Last edited by shiny on November 10, 2026. View history
Tea
Tea
How to sow tea: Cuttings or direct seed indoors
Sun requirement for tea: Plant in Partial Sun
Tea is an evergreen shrub or small tree cultivated for its leaves and leaf buds, which are made into tea. There are hundreds to thousands of tea cultivars. Tea is native to the cool, humid, tropical highlands of East Asia, India, and Southeast Asia. Plants have 4-5cm long leaves, yellow-white flowers, and strong taproots. Tea plants can grow to 10m, but are pruned to 2m or shorter in cultivation for ease of harvest. Young, light green leaves are preferred for tea. Buds and the first two to three leaves are harvested every one to two weeks. White Tea, the least processed and oxidized tea, is highest in antioxidants and lowest in caffeine. Green tea is made by steaming or frying and then drying leaves. Oolong is partially fermented and then bruised. Black tea is fully fermented, giving it the highest amounts of caffeine. Pu-erh tea is fermented a second time after it is dried. Tea plants are not self-fertile. They do best in tropical to subtropical regions where temperatures are between 13-30° C and the annual rainfall is at least 127cm. Tea plants produce better without shade, but need shade to keep air cool in hot periods.
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Tea facts
Lifespan
Height × spread
1000cm × 800cmCrop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For tea, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 8°C and a shortest growing cycle of 240 days at its best temperature, about 4080 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your tea will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
How members grow tea
Sunniness
Planted from
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Photos
Photos
Tea crops
Tea plantings
Video
Where tea grow
Only plantings by members who have set their locations are shown.
What people are saying about tea
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Who's planted tea
- wrdnrd Canterbury — Front walk · UDistrict, Seattle,...
- tegan garden - front yard
Tea harvests
Nobody has harvested this crop yet.
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Time to harvest
If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 240 to 365 days.
From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.
Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntz
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Dilleniidae Theales Theaceae |
|---|---|
| Killing temperature | growth: 0 °C, rest: -5 °C |
| Life form | shrub |
| Life span | perennial |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | deep (>>150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | heavy, medium, light |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours), neutral day (12-14 hours), long day (>14 hours) |
Learn more about tea
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