Growing herbs for tea can be either a pleasant hobby or become a market crop offered to customers in a variety of ways, giving them the opportunity to add healthy variety to their beverage menu, whether warming up in the morning with a fresh-picked brew, or sipping garden-grown iced tea on a summer afternoon.

Humans and tea go back a long way. Black, green, oolong and the rarer white tea, which all come from an evergreen bush (Camellia sinensis) native to China and India, are popular worldwide. According to legend, tea drinking from this plant originated in China four to five thousand years ago, reaching Europe in the 1600s. Infusions of this plant are considered