June 2026
Why the mist matters
The thing that makes the tea difficult to grow is the same thing that makes it taste like this.
Every morning on the north slope the cloud comes in off the water and sits on the rows until about eleven. The leaves stay wet. The sun, when it finally gets through, is weak and low.
That is bad for yield. The plants grow slowly, and slow growth means fewer harvests than a plantation in Sri Lanka would take from the same acreage. It is good for flavour for exactly the same reason: a leaf that grows slowly has longer to build up the compounds you taste.
This is the trade the island makes. Less tea, and tea that tastes like somewhere specific. I would not want it the other way round.
Written in Dubai · Faty Tea, single origin from São Miguel
