Tea anyone?

Tuesday, October 20

I got up a little early today and made a big breakfast.  Bill had mentioned the other day that he wanted an omelet so instead of going out I cooked.  We had omelets, hash browns, turkey sausage and blueberry muffins!  I haven't fixed a breakfast like that in a long, long time.  It also meant that we wouldn't be having lunch!  All that cooking created a bunch of dirty dishes so I cleaned that up while Bill took a shower.  I also put a roast in the crockpot for dinner.  A lot of activity in the morning.  I planned on crashing later in the day. 

We didn't leave the rig to go exploring until around 10:30.  We have been to Charleston before so we decided not to visit most of the places we saw before.  That included Patriot's Point, Fort Sumter, and taking a carriage tour of downtown.  Our destination today is south of town on Wadmalaw Island.  We will be visiting the Charleston Tea Plantation, home of the only tea plantation in the US! 

Most tea is grown in South America and the Orient.  The original tea plants, which are still producing tea, were planted in 1888.  They were transplanted from their original location to where the tea plantation stands today.  In 2003 William Barclay Hall joined forces with the Bigelow tea company and today they produce the American Classic Tea.  You can take a short tour through the factory and see the process through windows as you listen to a video explanation. 

They only make black and green teas in this facility.  They don't make decaffeinated tea either as it requires chemicals.  The processed tea is shipped to the Bigelow factory for flavors to be added and to be put in tea bags.  They have samples in the gift shop and the tea is good.  They had a breakfast tea and a raspberry tea today.  They were both good.  We also took a trolley tour of the plantation.  It is $10 per person and very informative.  Did you know the only difference between black tea, oolong tea and green tea is the amount of time spent processing?  They all come from the same plant!  Each tea plant can be harvested about 20 times each growing season. 

This is their one of a kind tea harvester.  In most of the places tea is grown it is on hillsides so must be harvested by hand.  Because the ground is flat here they were able to design and create this harvester. 

After drinking all the tea we wanted and making some purchases in the gift shop we headed back toward Charleston.  On the way we stopped at the Angel Tree. 

 This tree is the oldest tree on the Eastern Coast.  It is between 300-400 years old!  Here is some more info on this tree. 

 I thought I found an elephant head among the limbs.  Do you see it here?

We headed into Charleston because I wanted to re-visit the City Market downtown.  There were a couple of things I was thinking about purchasing.  One of these was a sweet grass basket.  I got one for a gift the last time we were here and I thought I would like one.  It seems the prices have made a huge jump.  And I mean a huge jump, prices are now about $15.00 - $20.00 more so I didn't get one.  We did visit the Moon-Pie general store which was across the street.  I did get some Moon-Pies.  We even picked out a couple to eat which shopping.  Yummy.  Here are some pictures of the market other buildings that I took. 

Many of the streets in Charleston are one-way so driving there drove me crazy!  The GPS directed us back to the base with no trouble.  The smell of the roast in the crockpot was delicious when we opened the door.  I finished off the gravy and we had a fabulous dinner.  The rest of the evening I rested with my legs up.  We don't have any plans for tomorrow and we leave here on Friday to head to Savanna. 

I hope you had a good day and enjoy the pictures.