Week 1

Week 1!

For my senior project, I am working at a farm called 'Minto Island Growers'. There, I have been working in the tea section of there farm, doing various tasks for the upkeep of the tea plants. Such tasks mainly include harvesting tea for processing and planting tea seeds.

I chose this particular project because I wanted to be active and outside. When I began my search for a senior project, I was just looking at farms in my local area. Somehow, I came upon Minto Island Growers and I noticed that they also had a tea farm which was unique to any of the other farms I was looking at. They are one of the only tea farms in the Pacific Northwest so even though it is a one hour drive, I wanted to work there as I found it to be a unique farm and opportunity. I also wanted to do this particular project because I love drinking tea. I thought it would be really cool to see how tea is grown and made to give me some context for the beverage that I drink almost every day.

I would say that this is my inspiration for this project. To learn more about where tea comes from and how it is grown, made, and processed. The main person who I work with at Minto Island Growers is Kacie, the tea production manager. During the project, I am basically acting as her intern in the tea production side of things. I also work with a variety of people when I pick tea because there are other people in the field with me when I am picking.

The way this project came together was by me emailing the Minto Island Tea Company. My email detailed the concept of our senior projects and I asked if it would be a possibility to work at the tea farm. Kacie got back to me and said that I could be her intern and from there, we stayed in touch until the project. In terms of goals for this project, one goal I have is to learn more about tea and where it comes from.

This is what the tea plants look like. I took this picture from the tea field.
These are tea leaves in my hand. This is the part of the plant that I am supposed to harvest (two leaves and a bud).
Another photo of what I harvest.
This is my station that I had set up when I was working with the tea seeds. In the left bucket are the tea seeds and on the right are the husks from the seeds.



Comments

  1. Becky WMay 23, 2021 at 9:16 AM

    Thank you for the pictures, Hannah! Getting the seeds out looks time intensive. Are the husks soft or hard? What kind of tea is it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. VeronicaMay 24, 2021 at 11:16 AM

    I've biked past this place, just south of Salem! I've always wondered about it because it seems a bit of an anomaly, surrounded by farms growing more traditional fare for the Pacific Northwest. Those seeds are surprisingly large; is that whole thing one? Will you get to drink tea made from your harvest, or is the process of field-to-cup too long for you to fully experience during your senior project?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousMay 26, 2021 at 5:01 PM

      Yes, the whole thing is one seed. They are quite big! I hopefully will get to drink the tea sometime next week! We have finished the picking for the Spring season and are now moving more into the fertilizing/processing/maintaining phase so I should be able to taste pretty soon.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousMay 24, 2021 at 11:58 AM

    This looks fantastic! What a great way to be outdoors and learning about the process of growing and making tea. Nice photos.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Peter ShulmanMay 24, 2021 at 2:10 PM

    This is fascinating! I would love to hear more about the plant(s), how they found types that would do well here, etc..

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bianca KNMay 24, 2021 at 2:31 PM

    How super cool that Camellia sinensis can actually be grown in Oregon! (As a tea crop, not just the ornamental varieties.) I'll be so interested to see how black, green, and white tea are processed differently -- does the farm produce all of these?

    ReplyDelete

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