Miss an installment of our series on Australian tea? Check out Part 1 on the British and Irish influence on Australian tea. Then read Part 2 on what's brewing in Queensland.
With fresh and clean air, panoramic views, striking landscapes, and the UNESCO City of Gastronomy, Launceston, the island state of Tasmania, located south of the mainland, is the kind of cool paradise that is ideal for a visit. For most of its history, the inhabitants of the island have had to drink imported tea. Circumstances have seen a measured shift recently as for the past five years, local commercially cultivated tea, more artisanal in nature than the mainland gardens and imported tea, has been available in Tasmania.
Indeed, tea cultivation in Tasmania represents a fascinating intersection of tradition, innovation, and geography. As Australia's only island state, Tasmania offers a set of unique environmental conditions that combined, make it well-suited to growing high-quality tea. Resting between the Southern Ocean and the Tasman Sea, the island is characterized by its cool temperate climate, abundant rainfall, pristine air, and rich volcanic soils—all of which are ideal for nurturing the tender but hardy Camellia sinensis plant.
Unlike mainland Australia, where hotter, drier conditions dominate, Tasmania's relatively mild summers and long, slow-growing seasons, allow for the development of complex flavors within the tea leaves sprouting from Tasmanian tea bushes.
The island's isolation also offers biosecurity advantages. “We basically don’t have to worry about pests or tea diseases,” says Dr. Gordon Brown, Ph.D. owner of Tassie-T, Tasmania’s only commercial tea estate. As a result, Brown’s plantation is increasingly gaining recognition for their sustainable practices and artisanal production, crafting teas that reflect the purity and character of the land from which they come.
Tassie-T would not exist had Brown, a Ph.D.-horticulturalist not relocated in the mid ‘80s from Sydney where he had earned his doctorate, to an area in Tasmania called Allens Rivulet, a quaint yet scenic part of the Huon Valley. The move came at the behest of the Australian Department of Agriculture, for they had tasked him with a mission: to explore viability of tea cultivation in Tasmania for export to Asia. When the project was over, he decided that he enjoyed the experiment so much – and liked the tea produced – that he bought the eight-acre plantation.
“For a long time, it was like a hobby farm,” Brown says.
At the turn of the 21st Century, the Brown family established a factory. By then, Gordon’s daughter, Charlotte, a business graduate, and wife, Jane, who had worked as a teacher and food technologist, came to be deeply involved in Tassie-T. They conceived of it as a farm-to-table business, crafting white, green, black, and oolong teas from Japanese leaves.
“I got involved in the government project in 1990 where we were looking at the potential of Japanese green tea,” says Gordon. The point of the project was to explore the viability of growing the Japanese variety of Camelia sinensis in Tasmania for export to Japan: “Could we grow Japanese green tea here for the Japanese market?” Gordon recalls.
Japanese tea was not only found to be a viable plant to harvest but it also thrived under the conditions present on the land. But somewhere along the path, the notion of supplying Japan, stalled.
“So, we're Australia's very first Japanese green tea plantings,” Gordon claims.
Though cooler than traditional tea-growing regions, Tasmania’s pollution-free air, heavy rainfall, and fertile soils offer a unique terroir that imparts distinctive characteristics to the tea on which it is cultivated. Also, those who reside on the island are called Tassies – hence, the name of the plantation.
The brisker climate contributes to a slower-growing leaf, which often results in a more complex flavor profile. The company emphasizes organic principles and aims to put Tasmania on the map as a legitimate source of high-end, cold-climate teas.
After the project was over, Gordon remained with the Department of Agriculture and later moved on become a research scientist at the University of Tasmania. But tea cultivation continued as a second career. “And it just has just kept plodding on in the background,” he quips.
The establishment of a factory changed the profile of the plantation, and they slowly expanded operations until the plantation became commercially viable.
Breaking the Rules
Gordon is something like a “Tasmanian Devil” (the once popular Loony Tunes cartoon character rather than the actual animal) in that he does things his own way, conventional wisdom be damned. It’s something that may truly terrify conventional planters.
“There's all these rules in growing tea, and I think we break every one of them,” Gordon says with a roguish smile, expounding: “…one of which is the soil has to be well drained. What I have found is the tea grows here without drainage. We have very poorly drained soil, but it goes exceedingly well.”
Gordon has even cultivated in the winter and sold off those plants to others with ambitions to establish plantations of their own in Tasmania. So, he has seeded three other major plantations in Tasmania. “But they haven't started selling their products yet,” says Gordon.
Before tea took off, the Browns were growing and drying fruits and mushrooms. Now, the other plants they grow are used to flavor the teas on offer. “This year we've been cut and drying flowers as well, for the same purpose to insert into our tea blends,” Gordon mentions.
Dealing with the rainfall is a challenge. In winter, it rains excessively. “I mean, you jump on the soil and water comes splitting up everywhere, but the tea can survive wet roots in wintertime quite happily.” Gordon describes, adding: “In summertime. It's the opposite problem. So, we, actually, have to be irrigating because we have a dry summer.”
However, their precipitation challenges don’t prevent them from getting a proper yield in the spring and summer. The production season begins in late October or November and ends sometime in January, yielding a harvest of around 300 Kg, annually – rather an impressive feat for an 8-acre plot of land.
That said, Tassie-T’s winter harvest distinguishes the estate from other plantations. While they mainly take cuttings in the winter to sell to other potential planters, they also harvest a tea that they process as a sort of oolong at that time. “It is intriguing,” Gordon remarks. “A tea made of mature winter leaves taste so different to the one from summer.”
Gordon has relied heavily on improvisation on his small tea estate. “I don’t know if you saw the picture of our harvester, but it’s basically a modified ride-on lawnmower,” he quips.
Due to issues with oxidation of green tea, which is to be avoided, Gordon, who is constantly innovating like a horticulturalist MacGyver, has developed a vacuum drying system to deal with this issue. “The leaves were getting brown, and I didn’t like that! So, I put them in these sort of onion bags, and used a pump to siphon-out the air,” he says. “Basically, in a way, I’m boiling the water out of the leaves [by vacuuming the leaves]. The beauty is there's no oxygen there to oxidize the polyphenolics,” he adds.
Gordon notes that this system is only used for green tea. “We don’t put the black tea through it,” he says. (Black tea needs oxidation for the distinctive flavor compounds associated with it to emerge.)
For their bags, instead of using a traditional CTC machine, they use a modified meat grinder with the standard blades removed. Trying to imagine their distinctly retrofitted equipment makes one’s head spin – but they’re making interesting tasting teas with it. So, their black tea turns out to taste like a Chinese red tea.
“It's very mild,” Gordon describes. “All our teas are mild, but we do sell what we call a breakfast tea. To give that an extra punch, we actually put Tasmanian pepper berries ground up through it!” The pepper berries are a plant native to Tasmania, making the experience one that is authentic and unique to the island, which daughter Charlotte Brown describes as “peppery,” but not in a traditional way. “It's got almost like a eucalyptus kind of characteristic in an Australian native way. So yeah, I've had customers that said they really like it, because it smells like this [when they’re] sort of out bush walking. It's got that kind of aroma to it.”
“So, for people who are desperate for a strong tea,” adds Gordon, “we sell them that tea instead.”
The Browns are a welcoming clan, and Gordon in particular is keen on showcasing what he’s done on his relatively small tea garden. That said, Charlotte generally conducts the tours, and is at the front counter of their store called the Cellar Door. Hence, tea tourism is flourishing on the estate. Visiting hours are from 10 am to 3 pm from Wednesday to Sunday for a quick $10 tour – and more extensive tours can be booked by appointment in advance.
The Outlook for Australian Tea Production
The ascendency of plantations like Arakai, Daintree, Madura, and Tassie-T is changing conceptions of what can exemplify modern Australian agriculture. While still an esoteric crop, the domestic tea industry ‘Down Under’ is burgeoning, spurred by changing perceptions of tea being proliferated by boutique retailers, tea educators, and an emerging movement to buy local – not to mention the remarkable ability of the tea bush thrive on marginal land.
Consumption habits are changing, too, as younger generations gain exposure to premium loose-leaf tea that needs no additives – turning away from the beverage preferred by their forbears. With health being at the forefront of priorities of those with decades ahead of them as well as the desire to connect with nature, and slow down and relax, the demand for various types of high-quality tea is surging at a time when domestic supply is growing.
Based on cuttings sold by Gordon Brown, there are at least three tea nascent plantations beginning their journey on the island of Tasmania, and perhaps more on the mainland. Australia is a vast continent with a long history of agricultural accomplishment, providing abundant arable terroir and favorable environmental conditions poised to create an array of possibilities for the Camelia sinensis plant.
Plan to Attend or Participate in World Tea Expo, March 23-25, 2026
To learn about other key developments, trends, issues, hot topics and products within the global tea community, plan to attend World Tea Expo, March 23-25, 2026 in Las Vegas, co-located with Bar & Restaurant Expo. Visit WorldTeaExpo.com.
To book your sponsorship or exhibit space at World Tea Expo, or to inquire about advertising and sponsorship opportunities at World Tea News, contact:
Ellainy Karaboitis-Christopoulos, Business Development Manager, Questex
Phone: +1-212-895-8493; Email: [email protected]
Looking for professional tea education, certifications, and more? Visit World Tea Academy and register for courses today!
Also, be sure to stay connected with World Tea Expo on social media for details and insights about the event. Follow us on X, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.