100% Scottish grown tea in our walled garden.

In 2016 I had the chance to join a group of girls, Tea Gardens of Scotland, and to grow tea in our walled garden. Generations of my family had grown tea in Shillong, Assam and this opportunity just came at the right time. I helped to plant seeds and potted on the plants to work towards having our own tea plantations. A year later we planted out the tea in our gardens and our aim was to produce beautiful, top end, pure and grown from seed Scottish tea.

Contact us direct to buy our 100% Scottish teas >>

Tea from seed
Tea planter
Lady birds
irrigation water system
single estate Black and Green tea
Napali tea bushes

Frisky Rascal Tea

'Frisky Rascal' The first roasted green tea to come out of Scotland. Named Frisky Rascal after a rescued red squirrel here at St Martins, ‘Mr Wadja’ he was so gorgeous and completely stole our hearts. This Perthshire grown green tea has been carefully crafted from the combined leaf of just three independent gardens in the county... Get the full story in Tea Gardens of Scotland Press Release.

Waleed Garden tea plantation

Walled Garden Tea

At St Martins Abbey tea has been planted in the walled garden which had been abandoned for many years. Before the First World War there were 27 gardeners working on the estate and this was a working garden growing fruit, vegetables and flowers for the main house and estate workers. . It was built on a slope and there were tidy raked paths and clipped box hedges as edging for the beds.There is a tower in the north east wall from which a bell was rung each morning for the estate workers to go up to the chapel in the house for a short service. The southern wall has chimminies along half of it with fireplaces along the bottom for coal fires which were lit to heat the peach houses in the lower walled garden.

  • Black tea
  • Green Tea
  • White tea
  • Steamed and roasted Green tea
  • Handrolled artisan Black tea
  • Teas are grown, and processed here in Perthshire.
Napali tea bushes

Clearing the Walled garden

Times have changed and formality and order have been traded in the 1.8 acres top walled garden to establish a tea garden. Luckily the soil was the right pH but during my childhood the walled garden was used as a donkey field and then left to go feral. There were shoulder high weeds, dockens, raspberries, nettles, thistles, you name it so we topped it and then had a winter of 5 enormous pigs that routled about and cleared all the roots etc. It was then ploughed and harrowed in preparation for the tea plants.

Georgian tea plant

Napail & Georgian tea plants & fruits

We have tea plants growing from both Nepal and Georgia, the varieties have been kept separate and infact have different traits. In 2019 we invested in a polytunnel to try and bring on some of the plants to be able to extend the growing season and develop different teas. The whole family have been involved in taming the walled garden and three generations of us helped to plant the rows of tea, tending the plants and building the irrigation system. Around the edge of the walled garden we have a huge variety of different and quite unexpected fruits. This seemed vital for enticing help from younger family members !

  • Cold hardy - large leaf camelia sinensis
  • Irregation & fertilizers
  • poly tunnel nursey
  • Rare fruit bushes
  • Honey bees
  • Poppies & favourite flowers
water

How easy is it to grow tea?

I really believe nothing in life is meant to be too easy and this was exactly that......we had such challenges. Tea hadn't been grown on any scale in Scotland before so there was no manual, we found it loved the long hours of daylight of our summer but struggled badly with the harsh winter winds and prolonged minus degree days. Our plucking season is very short with the plants coming out of dormancy around April, but not forgetting we can get late frosts into June, and going back into dormancy in October again.

rolling tea

Tea Making and tea education

Learning about tea has been a joy. Full immersion into the tea plantations of Sri Lanka, and India learning from the experts out in the field and in the many tea factories that we visited. So many people have been incredibly generous with their knowledge and encouragement and it has been up to us to translate that information into how it can be adapted to growing tea in Scotland. A UK Tea Academy Tea Champion course run at the Scottish Tea Factory was particularly informative as well.

green tea making

Buy our tea - it's for sale in 15g taster packs

Ptarmigan - Black tea
'Frisky Rascal' - roasted Green tea
Birdsong - steamed Green tea
Laughing Lassies - semi-oxidized tea

Please enquire about taster and wholesale quantities of our teas

Rolling Tea

Member of Tea Gardens of Scotland

2023 we plucked over twice the amount of tea that we plucked last year, our poly tunnel is producing 300% more than our outside bushes.

Until this year our plucked tea went to the Scottish tea factory where Beverly Wainwright performed her magic on it, carrying out many experiments with our leaf before producing a tea that she is happy with - she's a total perfectionist and her results are reknowned. We have learned so much from her and other wonderful tea masters from around the world and are now experimenting ourselves.

  • Plucking
  • Oxidizing
  • Rolling tea
  • Sampling tea
  • Tea experiments
green tea making

Tea Tour - Come and Visit us?

We are not open to the public - but Bespoke Tea Tours and Tea tasting are welcomed by appointment only. Minimum 4 people, please enquire.

Tea from seed

Tea seed from Nepal and Georgia - has been grown into green leaf plants which are then carefully crafted into wonderful Black and Green tea - all from the same plant! Scottish Tea - Grown in Perthshire and Made in Perthshire - one of the first commercial tea farms in the UK producing 100% single estate teas.

Lady birds

The micro-climate within the walled garden, the soil and the habitat create a unique environment for our tea to grow - even the poly tunnel. We are passionate about biodiversity and we try not to use chemical sprays and we encourage a habitat for birds, insects and microorganisms to flourish. Our Agronomist who specialises in soft fruits took the challenge to work withus from the start of the project.

Irrigation system

Irrigation is a challenge and with 5,000 tea plants requiring approx 2 litres of water per through the growing season - we are grateful for our water pump and irrigation system.

Tea planter

During the cold winters we have lost a number of tea plants - but we have planted seeds and grown infill plants - always learning and always trying new methods of bringing them on before planting them out.

single estate Black and Green tea

We are so proud to work with Beverly have run some experiments with our leaf over the last few year at the Scottish Tea Factory, to develop our teas at St Martins. By 2021 we hope to have a single estate Black and Green tea.