Are you a tea connoisseur?  Do you want it iced, hot or both?  Sweet, unsweet, or half and half?  Is tea a southern thing?  Is tea grown in America?  If so, where? Then, how did tea come to America?  Is there a tea connection in the Upstate?

Well, we southerners are tea lovers for sure!  Have you ordered tea in New England?  What do you get?  Unsweet!  And if you ask for sweet, they hand you a packet of sugar.  Yes, and you know as well as I do, that IS NOT sweet tea.  If you visit England, China, India, what will you get when ordering tea?  HOT tea.  It is hard to even get ICE in those parts of the world.

So, southern tea is special! Right!  Summerville is called the Sweet Tea Capital.  Charleston claims the tea plantation.  Do you know that there is a tea farm at Table Rock though?  And did you know that the first commercial tea in the Americas was grown near Piedmont?  

So, yes, there is an important tea connection in the Upstate!

The Golden Grove Tea Plantation of Dr. Junius Smith was started in 1848 by an internationally known merchant and entrepreneur.  Called the Father of the Steam Ship, Smith brought live tea plants imported from China to the Piedmont area to start a new business after his venture into shipping.  Already a seventy-year-old senior, Dr. Smith’s plantation was viable for about four years before his health failed.  

What was Junius Smith’s story?  Why did he come from New England to Piedmont with his tea?  What happened to the farm?  Want to know more?

Join us at the Piedmont Community Building on February 11th at 2:30 pm to hear “The Rest of the Story”.    Dr. Anne Peden, Larry Conant, and others will share the story of Tea in the Americas and how the Upstate is continuing to be involved in this ongoing history.

Anne Peden, Phd.
Greenville County Historic Preservation Commission
Fork Shoals Historical Society
Piedmont Historical Preservation Society ●