In “Spilling the Tea in the Mississippi Pine Belt” Gravy reporter Georgia Sparling explores the tea farms popping up in Mississippi’s Pine Belt, where the tannic soil is perfect for growing tea.

While many think of strong, syrupy sweet, ice-cold tea as quintessentially Southern, the only thing truly Southern about this ubiquitous beverage is how we drink it. Almost every tea leaf we consume in the United States comes from somewhere else.

Tea has been cultivated for more than 5,000 years, first in China and now in India, Nepal, Kenya, and even Argentina. Mississippi, though, seemed unlikely. The tea plant, Chinese camellia, tends to thrive in inhospitable places, such as mountains and hillsides. While the Pine Belt can certainly be inhospitable with its three-digit-degree summers, tornadoes, and dry spells, it’s a wildly different climate than where most tea is grown. The soil, however, was just right for the acid-loving plants, which are known to adapt to their circumstances.

Still, much was unknown when The Great Mississippi Tea Company in Brookhaven and the Longleaf Tea Company in Laurel planted their first crops in 2011 and 2018, respectively. Tea is a long-term investment. It takes three to five years for the plants to become established and ready for harvest. After that, they can live for a century or more—that is, if they survive. Both farms experienced heavy losses during their first seasons of planting. Great Mississippi lost all four acres of their initial crop, while Longleaf lost 300 of their first 1,000 saplings.

But they replanted, and today these small but mighty farms have not only taken root but they are thriving. Great Mississippi and Longleaf are finding that not only do tea plants have a taste for Mississippi soil, but Mississippians (and beyond) have a taste for the delicate and complex flavors of Southern grown tea. Georgia Sparling visits these farms and learns what it takes to grow a perfect cup of tea.

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