The Charleston Tea Plantation, located on Wadmalaw Island in the lowcountry of South Carolina, is the only working tea plantation in the United States. Growing over 320 varieties of the Camellia Sinensis plant (originally brought over from China in the 1700′s), the tea garden produces both black and green teas.

Despite their deliciously libacious start in China, the plants didn’t successfully produce tea here until 1888, when Dr. Charles Shepard founded the Pinehurst Tea Plantation in Summerville, South Carolina. But when Shepard died in 1915, his formerly award-winning tea bushes grew wild. It wasn’t until 1968 that the bushes were transplanted and took hold on a former potato farm on Wadmalaw Island, transforming the land into a place for experimental tea research. In 1987, a third-generation tea taster named William Barclay Hall purchased the land and converted it from a research and development property into a commercial business. The Charleston Tea Plantation was born. Continue Reading »

In college, I had a friend that mixed a “diet cocktail” of vodka and fresh brewed green tea (sugarless tea, mind you). Needless to say, I found the combination to be rather unpalatable (okay, it was absolutely terrible). Don’t get me wrong, though. I love green tea. I like vodka. And I have been known to balance my boozing regimen with a regular detoxifying tea routine. But as a cocktail? Eh…

Thanks to Phillips Distilling Company, I can now get intoxicated and detoxify at the same time! Okay, technically that is not a legitimate statement. However, the new UV Sweet Green Tea Vodka is infused with real green tea leaves — which means it has to have some sort of antioxidant property. Right? Please don’t burst my bubble… Continue Reading »