Today is National Iced Tea Day. Pictured here is one of 6 tea plants recently added to the Museum gardens.
Though tea was consumed locally in the 17th and 18th century, it was mostly imported; Native Americans consumed caffeinated tea-like drinks made from yaupon, and this "Carolina tea" was eventually (and briefly) adopted by the white colonists.
French botanist Francois Andre Michaux first planted Camellia sinensis in the Lowcountry in 1799. (If you're familiar with the area around the Charleston International Airport, his name may ring a bell!) This tea did well but was generally unpopular because the flavor was different than the usual bohea or green teas.
Dr. Junius Smith started a commercial tea farm in Greenville in 1848, but it only lasted a few years because of his untimely death. Other tea farms came and went through the following decades. In 1893, Pinehurst Plantation in Summerville plucked its first native-grown tea. Pinehurst flourished until 1915.
In the 1960s, Lipton Tea Company took root cuttings from the former Pinehurst site and started new farms in Summerville and on Wadmalaw Island. In 2003 the Wadmalaw farm was purchased by Bigelow, who still own and operate Charleston Tea Garden today. The American Black Tea grown there is the only commercially-sold tea grown in the United States.
Since 1995, iced tea has been the official Hospitality Beverage of South Carolina.