Peterston Tea - Award Winning Tea Grown in Wales

Peterston Tea - Award Winning Tea Grown in Wales

A wonderful day harvesting Welsh Grown tea at the Peterston Tea Estate near Cowbridge!

Did you know that Peterston Tea is growing award winning tea right here in Wales!?

This blog is about my visit to meet Lucy George, Managing Director of Peterston Tea and a wonderful day spent working with Lucy and harvesting tea at the Estate.

Picture the scene …

Anticipation. A day that promised adventure & new tea experiences ...

A blue sky with partial cloud overhead and the sun on your back …

A journey through winding lanes and along a partially hidden track …

Arrival. A warm friendly welcome from Lucy …

Instant approval from the farm cat …

And the start of a wonderful day spent with Lucy George at Peterston Tea Estate...

Tea (Camellia sinensis) is related to the ornamental Camellia japonica shrub that flowers each Spring in gardens across the UK. Tea is grown commercially in over 70 countries around the World and most tea comes from China, India, Kenya, and Sri-Lanka. Despite often being planted in vast plantations in these countries, tea is a surprisingly difficult plant to grow, and needs the right environment, climate, and growing conditions in which to thrive … None of which can be relied upon this far North of the Equator. This makes growing quality tea in Wales a distinct challenge!

Lucy took over her parents’ ‘Pick Your Own’ fruit farm, in the Vale of Glamorgan, in 2002.

In 2014 she decided to remodel the business and try growing a commercial tea crop instead. Then began a journey of research & exploration, visiting tea growers around the world, inviting specialist tea consultants to the farm, and sourcing the tea seeds and equipment.

Roll forward to 2020 … Despite many challenges and set-backs along the way, Lucy battled the odds, nurtured her tea plants, overcame a few disasters, and in 2020 she finally began harvesting and processing the tea grown on her five acre tea estate. The results were very encouraging.

From those early beginnings Lucy now produces a range of three outstanding teas which she has named: Peterston Du (Black), Peterston Toasted Green, and Peterston Steamed Green. 

I first made contact with Lucy in Autumn 2018 to enquire about stocking her tea within our business. At that stage the tea plants were still too small to harvest. The vast majority of Lucy’s plants are seed grown, and it takes at least 4 years to grow each plant from seed to a harvestable size. In Spring 2019 I was thrilled to receive a small sample of tea to try from Lucy’s first harvest. I was surprised and intrigued! … It was delicious! … Easily on a par with other excellent Single Origin teas that I had tried from my overseas suppliers. But the harvest was small and Lucy wasn’t yet ready to start selling it commercially. I kept contact with her and in May 2020 Lucy kindly sent samples of the tea that she had produced from the Spring 2020 harvest; again the results were of a very high quality. The teas had wonderful crisp flavours and were very exciting. This time the harvest size was sufficient and I was able to place a small order.

Peterston Tea Estate is a little over an hour's drive from our tea shop, so rather than ask Lucy to post the tea we agreed that I would visit the estate to have a look around and collect my order in person. I set off from Carmarthen with little idea of what to expect. 

Lucy welcomed me on arrival and invited me to join her for a walk around the estate. I was well aware that my visit was probably stopping her from many other more pressing tasks, but Lucy very kindly put me at ease and ensured me that she had looked forward to my visit and I was not interrupting her schedule. As we began the tour it soon became very evident that despite her modesty Lucy has achieved a great deal over the past few years and although she has faced numerous set-backs, such as losing huge numbers of plants during the ‘Beast from the East’ storm in winter 2018, her passion and resilience have kept the business on track.

A few days before my visit Lucy had taken delivery of numerous large pieces of tea making equipment which had just arrived from China. These included two large Ovens, a Withering machine, a Rolling machine, a Drying & Tumbling machine, and two large Withering racks with bamboo trays. The gleaming equipment was all unpacked and set up in the Processing room, and Lucy was patiently awaiting a visit from her electrician to connect the equipment … Once connected the next minor challenge was to decipher the instructions to operate the various buttons and switches … which were of course all written in Chinese!

We then took a tour of the tea plants, starting with a visit to the rows that were growing outdoors on a gently sloping site. Lucy had inter-planted these with Sichuan Pepper trees to provide shelter and to help create a more suitable microclimate. She explained that in the beginning many of the plants that she had grown undercover and transplanted outdoors had failed to thrive, and a large number had rapidly died. The main challenge appeared to be getting the plants to survive the transplanting stage and coping with their first cold and wet Welsh winter. Inter-planting with shelter trees has helped Lucy to overcome this challenge, whilst at the same time providing a secondary crop of Sichuan pepper.

We moved on to look at the tea plants growing under shelter in a series of long open-ended polytunnels that were spread over much of the Estate. Looking into the tunnels we saw rows of healthy tea bushes that had been grown and carefully pruned to create a ‘picking table’ just below waist height. This is the optimum height for easy and comfortable harvesting of the tea leaves during the picking season. Further on Lucy showed me tunnels of young plants that she had grown from seed and was now growing on in pots before planting out in new rows when they are mature enough. Lastly we entered the propagation area where Lucy showed me thousands of tea seedlings that she had germinated from her own seed, collected from the strongest tea specimens that were already growing on the estate. The hope being that seed from these healthy and robust plants would produce strong successful tea bushes and a good harvest in the years to come.

After the tour Lucy invited me to join her to harvest some tea leaves from an area that was ready for picking. I gladly clipped a collecting bucket around my waist, and we walked between the rows harvesting the top ‘two leaves and a bud’ of young growth from each plant as we went along. The leaves were collected with a gentle snap and a twist between the fingers, taking great care not to bruise the leaves or damage the parent plant. Lucy kept an eye on me at the beginning to ensure that my technique was correct, and we then progressed along the rows for a couple of hours, picking leaves and chatting about our mutual love of tea, our lives before tea, and much else besides. As the afternoon progressed we were joined by Lucy’s partner Lee who had arrived to check on other work at the estate and came to say hello. By the time we reached the end of the row our picking buckets were piled high.

Lucy then took the leaves to the processing area to let them rest a while before starting the withering process.

I rounded off a wonderful afternoon with an invitation to pick myself a large punnet of delicious plump red cherries from trees that were laden with fruit. The trees are still productive from the days when the estate was a ‘Pick Your Own’ Farm.

Lucy then presented me with two small tea plants, (which I promised to do my very best to keep alive, realising full well that the odds were stacked firmly against me ... Sadly after 3 years exposed to the high winds of our hill top garden near Carmarthen one of the plants has not survived, and the other is looking decidedly unhealthy so Lucy is definitely having more success than I am !!)

As we said our good-byes with promises of return visits and keeping in contact Lucy promised to send me some tea from the leaves that we had harvested together that afternoon. A special treat that I had no intention to share!

Visiting Peterston Tea Estate was a wonderful experience, and I am very grateful to Lucy & her partner Lee for their warm welcome and hospitality.

It is certainly not easy to grow tea in Wales, but Lucy is showing that with a lot of hard work and determination it is definitely possible. Not only possible, but … perhaps due to the challenging growing conditions, a careful hand during processing, and a little Welsh magic ... the results are a range of award winning Welsh grown teas that are truly exceptional in appearance, aroma, and flavour. 

Since my visit Peterston Tea has gained wide recognition for the quality of their teas, they now supply tea to Fortnum & Mason, as well as gaining Great Taste Awards, Winning Best Food and Drink Producer in Wales Award with BBC Cymru Wales, 2023, and featuring on numerous TV, Radio, and TV programmes including a memorable visit from ‘The Hairy Bikers’. 

Availability of Peterston Tea each year is limited by the relatively short harvest season here in Wales and the capacity that Lucy and her small team can produce to meet the high demand. 

We are proud to be a nominated supplier for Peterston Tea. 

Stocks are limited … Check current availability on our website.