The Minto Island Tea Farm's story started like most other Oregon tea stories: with Steven Smith.
Twenty-seven years ago, Smith stood in the beginnings of a half-acre experimental tea garden, greens and blacks and oolongs planted in patches that would soon become nearly unrecognizable from each other.
But at the time, the plants were young and trimmed low so the top two leaves on each could be harvested when ready, then brewed to see if the Willamette Valley's soils could produce tea worth selling under Smith's name.
In 1988, Rob Miller and and his business partner, John Vendeland, considered the tea garden a lark. Miller was always willing to experiment with a crazy idea -- he had grown coriander seed before, and was already in the essential oils business, so he was familiar with botanicals and risk.
Now, his daughter and her husband are betting the farm on the only Oregon-made organically-certified craft tea in the country. While China produces more than 1 million tons of tea every year, the U.S. barely has a presence in the industry. There are only about 30 tea farms in the U.S., and only one each in Oregon and Washington.
Elizabeth Miller and Chris Jenkins run a farm share business and sell at the Portland Farmers Market and a Salem farm stand. The Willamette Valley is full of small, family farms doing that business.
But none has the potential for world-class tea sales.
"It just feels like it dovetails so well with the local food movement," Jenkins said.
Minto Island is not the tea farm you might have seen in Google image searches. There are no rolling hills of cascading bright green rows. The farm is tucked under the road, with 12 new acres planted last year in a flat plain prone to flooding from the nearby Pettijohn Creek. Jenkins had to kayak above the fledgling bushes last winter to make sure they were surviving.
When Vendeland brought 200 plants from China, Japan and India, he and Miller expected zero to survive the winter, but they all did. Then they survived the rest of the year too.
In fact, the plants thrived and Miller scrambled to keep up with their growth. Smith died before the plants were ready for primetime and Miller never put the energy into marketing them. They grew tall and unruly, mostly getting attention when he assigned his daughter to test their resilience, dry and wither them for processing and see which were the best of the bunch during her school breaks.
When she started taking over the farm, she decided to double down on the family's pet project.
The tea has earned international attention. Chinese and Japanese visitors have come to the farm, intrigued by this strange upstart so far from the tea capitals of the world. This summer, two Japanese farmers stopped by after seeing it at the farmers market. Miller and Jenkins plan to repay the visit to learn more about Japanese tea processing.
There are few other places a U.S. tea grower can learn about the craft than the Asian birthplaces of the leaves.
"There's a novelty with a domestic product, but it's nothing if it doesn't taste good," Miller said. "It's kind of a fine balance between respecting the tradition and crafting your own unique Oregon tea."
Minto Island tea is pricey right now, because there is so little supply and it's so labor intensive to pick. Every harvest, Miller and Jenkins must teach new contract pickers how to harvest the plants. The plants pollinate in the winter, which is convenient in that it doesn't often coincide with the busiest produce season, but means that they must hire in off-seasons as well.
They process the small batches with a little trial and error. Some is done on-farm, roasting greens in a wok to produce a floral, citrusy taste and smell, or steaming them until the leaves dry into cumin-scented twists that taste earthy and dank. The rest is sent to a processor in Washington.
Even now, at nearly $20 per ounce, the tea has earned fans. Miller notes that it is likely the freshest tea you will ever have, because it doesn't have to cross an ocean or sit on shelves before making it to the mug. It is often sold within a month of being picked.
Miller and Jenkins plan to expand the tea garden to 15 or 20 acres, maybe adding a tea house on-site. The original planting will become a genetic bank -- where they try to hone which teas grow best and taste best.
They hope that the higher volume will allow them to do both loose leaf and bagged tea, and start selling it for culinary uses.
"It's been sustainable on this scale, but once our 15 acres comes online, it's going to kick us into high gear," Jenkins said. "There's so much opportunity, we'd be stupid not to see this through."
-- Molly Harbarger
mharbarger@oregonian.com
503-294-5923
@MollyHarbarger