Cuppa anyone? (tea or coffee?)

[red swirl]

Has anyone grown tea (camellia sinensis) or coffee (arabica)?

I'm a cup or 2 of tea a day person, but probably drink less coffee. D'you know how many plants I'd need to be selfsufficientISH?

I've heard coffee is quite hard to prepare yourself, but as I live near some 'boutique coffee roasters' I thought I'll try them if I ever get a decent crop. How about tea? Has anyone tried preparing (fermenting? drying?) their own tea, green or black?

Cheers!!

[Wormella]

yeah, I know my OH wants to grow coffee.

In theory it shouldn't be too hard to roast yourelf but you would need a fairly large yield to get anything worth using.

Bear in mind each coffee berry would have a maximum of two beans in it. and your looking at 50g of coffee for a caffitiere

[chadspad]

Hi Red Swirl,

Heres a link about growing tea

http://www.plantcultures.org.uk/plants/tea_grow_it.html

[ina]

At uni we had both, tea and coffee, in the greenhouse - but since it would have been impossibly expensive to grow the stuff myself, I never really got all that interested.

Mind you, they do now grow Darjeeling in Cornwall... for those who can afford to pay for it.

[Cheezy]

That's right Ina, I heard a radio 4 programme about it. Apparently it's got the perfect micro climate for tea.

Ie very wet with no frost, and high acid soil. Not too hot either. In India etc where it's grown it's at altitude on the hillside, so it's cooler climate than the lowlands, and much wetter.I believe it takes many years for a bush to come into production. You also only pick the new leaves, in a certain way , or something.

Coffee is usually grown with pepper corns as a companion plant, something to do with shading the pepper, and the time of year that they crop. Not sure of the required conditions for coffee, nor what your conditions are like red swirl

[Shirley]

hmmm not going to grow up in Scotland then is it...

Good luck with your growing red swirl - drinking the stuff is the nearest I've got to preparation myself

[Wombat]

I bought a coffee but I forgot to put it in the plastic house and it got frosted! (Bugger!)

Gotta get another one and give it a go!

Nev

[Millymollymandy]

Not sure of the required conditions for coffee,

I think it is the same as tea as my ancestors were coffee planters in Ceylon. When the coffee crop was devastated a lot of planters turned to planting tea.

[Shirley]

I bought a coffee but I forgot to put it in the plastic house and it got frosted! (Bugger!)

Gotta get another one and give it a go!

Nev

Iced coffee??