How I’ve Outfitted My Tea Growing Tent

In my previous post I mentioned that I had set up a grow tent in which I was going to start growing tea. I also mentioned I would follow up with a post on my lighting system and the rest of the equipment I got to pursue this endeavor. That was over a year ago.

It’s been a really long time, but better late than never, right? I’m finally getting around to writing the promised post. I’m really sorry for the long long delay, but it’s here now and hopefully it will help you.

So after I got my small grow tent in the mail, I first just put a couple of regular light bulbs in it. I wanted to get started growing right away and I didn’t really want to bother with researching, and then getting, real grow lights. Tea doesn’t flower, so most lights can actually grow this plant.

If you don’t know what flowering means, most plants have several stages of growth, the main ones being vegging and flowering. During vegging the plant simply grows up. During this time they need a lot of light with a bluish tint. Sunlight during the daytime has exactly this. A lot of artificial lighting has this to.

Fluorescent lights are especially good for this growth stage. Of course you can also use lighting such as metal halide or LED. These are much more expensive, though. That is why, if you have a plan that does not flower, you’re probably best off just going with fluorescent lighting.

Flowering refers to the final stages of growth, when the plants actually sprout buds and flowers, and in many cases fruits. In this stage they need much more red light. This is the light you get when the sun is lower on the horizon, during autumn, for example. This is why most plants flower during this time of the year.

With artificial lighting, fluorescent lights do have red spectrum light, but they aren’t very powerful. Most plants don’t flower as efficiently as they could under fluorescent lighting. That is why most growers use high-pressure sodium bulbs or powerful LED lights.

Since I’m growing tea though, I obviously do not need to worry about the flowering stage. For this reason I decided to go with fluorescent lights. I considered LED lighting at first, but soon realized how expensive a quality LED light is. And I didn’t want to get a cheap one that was made in China, because I had read a lot of horror stories about those.

In the end I decided on a line of fluorescent lights called AgroBrite. It is made by a company called Hydro farm. These fluorescent lights don’t cost much at all and are very well rated on sites like Amazon.

My light arrived after about a week and it was incredibly easy to install in my little grow tent. I use the supplied hangers to hang it from the ceiling and popped the bulbs into place. Then I plugged it in and that was it. Setting it up couldn’t get any easier.

Since my tent is small, I only put two tea plants underneath the fluorescent light. So far they’re growing really well, and I think I will actually be able to harvest some tea leaves in another month or two. I’m really excited about that.

Currently I’m reading up on how to dry tea leaves and also how long to ferment them for the different types of tea. Actually, I shouldn’t say ferment. People use that word a lot, but actually you’re just oxidizing the leaves. This is what creates the different types of tea, from white tea to green tea to yellow to oolong tea to black tea to pu-erh tea.

Personally, I want to start making just green tea and black tea and maybe some oolong tea since it’s right in the middle. The others are a bit difficult to make, though I am toying with the idea of harvesting the leaves when they’re very young and making some high-quality white tea or black tea, similar to golden monkey tea. We’ll see about that.

I’m really looking forward to this first harvest and I hope it is a success. If it is, I’m seriously considering getting another grow tent and expanding my operation. Maybe I can even sell the tea and make the money back that I spent on the tent and the florescent light. We’ll see.

Posted in growing tea | By Ladislav