Could you transplant a three-year old tea plant? Deferred gratification sucks.

Have you thought about herb tea? Herbs are more easily grown indoors, aren't they? Although I suspect you would need a lot of herbs to make one cup of tea.

You need a greenhouse.

Gotta stop calling this "shallow thought" day.

Dahlink, sweet, thanks, but please don't raise the bar.
I talked to a farmer today. He said go for it (why not. he's not going to be crying over a dead three-year-old tea shrubs). So I shall.
He suggested a couple tricks that might help the outdoor plants survive MD winter.
See ya in 2012.

Dahlink, I dunno, I've been having shallow thoughts all day - do you think it's from this posts name?

jl, this really does sound like a lot of trouble. It might be easier to just fly directly to Darjeeling, pull over on the roadside, and try a cup of freshly picked tea.

Now as to the teapots - having bought more teapots than I'd care to admit which did not pour properly, I'd say there must be an art to getting the spout designed correctly. Best pot I have is an English model Brown Betty.

I am so all over this!! I used to be able to get (bagged only ... sigh!) tea from "the only tea plantation in America" from Giant. Haven't seen it in years. The location was, I think, Georgia. That sounds about right, given the environments where most of the tea I drink comes from. It was not bad, though not enough to break me of my (former) Red Rose habit.

The problem with growing your own is real estate. Really good tea comes from the top two leaves and maybe the bud of each stem. You get a first flush each spring, and a second flush later in the summer, and then you have to wait for each stem to recycle. You need a whole lot of bushes to make enough tea for a couple of cups, let alone a pot, let alone the amount of tea I drink each day.

If you just dried the freshly plucked leaves in the sun, you'd get green tea. To make oolong or black tea, there is an additional fermenting stage that I have read about, but do not fathom in the least.

Since discovering bulk tea and cute little brewers from places like TeaZen (West Palm Beach, FL), Teavana (malls everywhere) and Teasource.com (Minneapolis) I have become a bagless tea drinker, and it really is better.

So at least ten shrubs have to survive for a cup a tea a year? How Zen. I've always wanted to see Darjeeling.

MD Canon, I used to love Red Rose as well, but lately prefer Tetley's British Blend. I haven't made the transition to bagless (yet!) For late in the day I love a nice cup of Roisbos, or Bush Tea, as Precious Ramotswe would call it. (Anyone else see the pilot of The Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency on HBO this week? We loved it!)

I've read The Number 1 etc, etc but I don't have cable.

Dahlink, I would love to be watching The Number 1 Ladie's Detec. Agency, AND Big Love, but I can only afford one premium channel and am too addicted to Weeds and Californication and U.S. of Tara to get rid of Showtime! I hope it comes out in a video box set at the end of the season!

No comments from me on tea. I like Turkey Hill Blueberry Acai and several species of Snapple (in a cave groovin with a pic).

For the bottled stuff, I like Turkey Hill's diet green tea. Everytime I go by a Tom Thumb I stop in to get some. Its the only place that carries it 'round here.

Oops! TeaZen is in Delray Beach, not West Palm. Worth the drive if you on that coast.

Eve and Joyce, we don't get Showtime--HBO snagged us with The Sopranos. I adore Big Love, but my husband can't watch it. And I am really looking forward to the second season of In Treatment.

Dahlink,
You can watch "In Treatment"? I tried and its like my old accounting texts. A cure for insomnia. And Big Love isn't my speed either.

oh well, to each their own...

Bill Maher's show is pretty funny, but to be honest, I haven't watched HBO in a good while.

the bottled stuff, I like Turkey Hill's diet green tea

Oh the humanity! So many things wrong with those words.

Owl,
I agree that fresh-brewed tea is the way to go, but after 18 holes of golf (with or without some beers at the turn) or a session on the practice range, in this heat, I just want sweet thirst relief, but not too sweet. And tasty too.

I also have weakness for the diet green tea from Turkey Hill. It is near close to an addiction. I sometimes wonder what they are putting in that tea, like that episode of Taxi where Latka makes cookies.

I feel your pain PCB. When I'm super-functional I make a big batch of green tea and fill glass air-tight bottles with them for later use. It's a freakin' production what with the Brita filtered water and exact boiling and loose tea and timing the brew. Oh I'm exhausted.