Another short trip to Italy for our Plantation team, who went to train with our camellia sinensis specialist Paolo. The opportunity to add 300 new tea trees to our 950 already planted, to take stock of the evolution of our trees at the end of this second year and to prepare the opening of our ecotourism circuits.
1250 tea trees at the FBKT Plantation!
Last week, our team returned to Paolo’s home on Lake Maggiore to select 300 new Camelia sinensis plants. These were immediately planted on their return, along with their buddies, to complete the plot, which now has 1,250 plants aged between 3 and 6 years.
In addition, there are 300 young shoots, obtained from the first seeds collected from our existing trees for our acclimatisation objective. These “babies”, which are growing well in the greenhouse, will be planted next year in the open ground.
On our mature tea bushes, a first small harvest is planned this year in order to perform dryness and oxidation tests.
Acclimatising the tea plant and introducing it to the public
After nearly two years of experimentation, the Plantation team has been able to benefit from additional training and to take stock of all the questions linked to learning how to grow tea and the behaviour of the plant, as well as drying and oxidation…
Perfect timing to refine our work in preparation for our ecotourism programme which should be able to start in May. We also enjoyed learning more about the camelia in general, whose magnificent specimens (which can reach several metres) were all in flower at this time of year (it’s quite simple, there were flowers everywhere…): a welcome breath of fresh air at the end of winter!
It’s far too beautiful, all these flowers, isn’t it?
The plants are growing too!
As for the aromatic plants, they are just coming out of their winter rest and mint and lemon balm are coming up. On the market gardening side, the seedlings are well in place and we already have our first radishes, while salads and new potatoes should soon be arriving… in the stomachs of the FBKT employees! 🙂
