Isle of Arran Tea Company, Arran

Bev and Tim Hodkinson

We bought our small 25 acre farm on the beautiful Isle of Arran in October 2004 and at first farmed alpacas. When our children left home we wanted to move away from livestock to give ourselves more freedom.

In June 2016, we heard an article about Scottish tea on the radio and got in contact with the grower. By August 2016 we had created a tea plantation and planted 1,000 one year old tea trees!

We installed an internet camera so we could watch our tea slowly grow from anywhere around the world!

At first we protected our tiny tea plants in tree protectors but removed these after 18 months to encourage wider growth. 

We started the process of converting the farm to be organic and achieved organic status in 2019. 

We have red deer visiting the farm and the tea plantation but they have not done any damage which we are grateful for as we love to see these majestic creatures.

We've pruned the tea for the first time in 2018 to encourage more of a candelabra shaped plant.

We have plucked our tea and made a Japanese Hojicha green tea at home which was delicious and we have also experimented with making tea tempura which was also scrumptious.

We were excited to join the tea Association of Scotland in 2020.