The climate is quite similar to Cornwall, in that it's often cold and wet. The British planted tea there in the 1840s considering it's regarded as one of the best regions for the product – the Champagne of tea, even – it's still so young, in comparison to the tea growing history of places such as China and Japan. I think I've learned the most from my trips to Darjeeling. They were helpful, open and honest about how to make it work. The reception from other tea growers was so positive no one saw us as a threat. I decided not to focus my research on the success stories I was more interested in learning about how and why things went wrong, because I knew we'd face a lot of challenges when it came to establishing the business in Cornwall. Looking back, it was quite a brave decision on Nuffield's part.Īfter winning the scholarship, I travelled to as many plantations around the world as possible. Drinking tea is such a part of the British identity, but before us, no one had tried to produce it here. When they were first presented with the idea of growing tea commercially in the UK, they thought it was a joke, but then they realised how committed we were about tea as a long-term project.
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