Has anyone tried growing your own tea? What were your experiences? Is it a worthwhile endeavor?
And getting it to grow doesn't mean it'll be good to drink.
Often there is a trick or two that the producers know that we don't.
I grew Brussles Sprouts that a hazmat team had to dispose of.
Yeah, I grow my own ... oh, uhm ... tea you say?
Nevermind.
I'm training monkeys to pick oolong as we speak.
I walked into some fancy schmancy tea store in a mall the other day (was desperate for tea and every damn shop within 100 miles of me was closed on Tuesdays for some reason). They had "Monkey Oolong". I scoffed at the story of monkeys picking it, but the young lady behind the counter was quite insistent, that at the very least, monks USED to train monkeys to pick their tea for them. Yep and the first tea tree sprouted out from Buddha's eyelids when he severed them to prevent himself falling asleep during meditation. I'm not saying it couldn't be done. Maybe one or two crazy monks did it for a laugh, but it's just impractical to do it for regular consumption. My guess is that the monks liked to see what the dumb visitors would believe and maybe had a monkey or two that was all too happy to run up a tree and grab a few leaves now and then for a treat.