A Welsh farmer has set up a tea plantation aiming to make a mint from Dai-jeeling.
Lucy George, 39, caused a stir when she took over a fruit farm from her parents and planted five acres with tea last year.
She said: “I was desperately trying to find a crop you could grow, where you could work on the farm and be outdoors. Something that was slightly novel but was more of a year-round crop.
“After counting out most vegetables, it came down to tea.”
The plantation started from just 180 seeds and Lucy now has more than 20,000 tea bushes in remote, rainy Peterston-super-Ely in the Vale of Glamorgan.
Despite being 4,800 miles from India, where most tea is grown, the fledgling business is going from strength to strength and Lucy now plans to expand.
She is seeking to follow the success of pioneering plantation Tregothnan, in Cornwall.
