Producing Tea in Louisiana: What Do Consumers Want?
By Yan Chen, Kathryn Fontenot, Mary Sexton, Jason Stagg, Jeff Beasley and Jeff Kuehny, LSU AgCenter
Tea plants, Camellia sinensis, are highly adaptable to Louisiana climate and soils. In the past, domestic tea production in the southeastern United States has been tried but never took hold except for what is now the Charleston Tea Plantation on Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina. But over the past decade, U.S. tea consumption has increased sixfold and reached $12 billion in 2016.