Tregothnan Tea

People sometimes enjoy pointing out that tea, the Englishman’s national drink, is invariably grown abroad, notably China and India. I point out in return that there was little advantage in having the world’s largest empire and not enjoying some of the foreign delicacies that imperialism provided. Nevertheless, Tregothnan of Truro is a British company that grows its own tea right here, specifically in Cornwall. The firm claims to have been growing exotic plants since the 1330s of which tea is simply its latest addition to the catalogue. The website states:

The first tea was grown in the UK in 1999 to put the ‘English into English Tea’ and the most British tea in history was first sold in 2005. Now, over 26 miles of tea bushes thrive in the unique microclimate, seven miles inland and with a deep-sea creek bringing regular fog. Manuka bushes have also thrived here since the 1880’s, the first grown outside of New Zealand and producing the most delicious honey.

One wonders why it took so many centuries for the English to grow tea when they are generally addicted to the stuff. Then again, looking out of the window while I write this, I also wonder how we manage to grow anything at all. The Cornish climate is warmer and drier than the Lancastrian, of course, and that helps. Yet I must salute the staff and proprietors of Tregothnan: they are making something that we would otherwise have to import, and working minor wonders for the national economy.

If, like me, you enjoy hearing testimonies (accounts of how people came to faith in Jesus Christ) and Christian biographies, you gain a real sense and awareness of what God has been doing in lives, churches and even nations. We read of the Church growing in such unpromising places as Iran, China and Mongolia, and yet we long for it here, too. I want the Holy Spirit to work in my own life, and not just read about Him working in others’. I want the fires of revival to burn brightly in this benighted land, and not just admire events elsewhere, from afar.  

Pass me not, O gentle Saviour,

hear my humble cry;

While on others Thou art calling,

do not pass me by.

Saviour, Saviour, hear my humble cry;

while on others Thou art calling,

do not pass me by.

-Fanny Crosby, 1868

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