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Jenny and her team in that space, second from left (all photos provided by her) |
Jenny Tse grows tea at 64 degrees North, about 100 miles from the Arctic Circle, outside Fairbanks, Alaska. It's by far the furthest North tea has probably ever been grown, or maybe will ever be grown. A feasibility study on growing tea in Scotland raises a couple of context issues that I'll address further here, which helps place that:
...While Scotland is the furthest point from the equator that tea has yet been grown commercially (Forfar is at latitude 57° north), the evidence is in the ground and on retailers’ shelves that it can be grown here. The big questions are whether it can be grown here commercially for profit - and if so – how?
What Jenny is doing doesn't change the accuracy of that; it's a still-limited experiment in growing tea plants in controlled greenhouse conditions (a building she calls a high tunnel, really), part of an existing resort's geothermal-heated food production garden, also supported by geothermal power generation systems. So it's completely sustainable! The "commercial for profit" part might develop further later on.
That's at the Chena Hotsprings Resort, which this doesn't cover in as much detail as it might, since the basis for this writing is to communicate one discussion's worth of input from Jenny. It's odd that Chena resort's site doesn't even mention geothermal power generation, or growing plants there for food, even in the winter. They do all that; of course Google search results adds lots more about it, or a Facebook page at least has photos of the resort and local environment. It's also interesting that their resort's Trip Advisor rating is 3 1/2 stars out of 5, so quite positive, but they are still heavily criticized by a minority of the guests, related to all sorts of details; so that can go. One guest's towel was stolen by someone; different things can come up.
A bit of an aside, early in this blog's run I researched tea being produced in North Korea, and supposedly tried some, provided by the same Chinese guide that brought Dennis Rodman there (but it can be hard to place claims about tea origins). A quick search of references shows that to be more in the 37 degree North range, so a bit far up there, comparable to the upper border of North Carolina in the US, but nowhere near the Scotland based growing range, never mind Fairbanks, Alaska.
My first thought was how could that even be a remotely practical commercial venture, and what must it cost to set up and maintain that. Very little, really, because that resort is a supporting partner, so the entire contributed infrastructure includes part of one of the four building growing areas already there, an existing heating and environment maintenance system, geothermal power to keep the tea plants warm, and geothermal based power supply for lighting. Everything but the plants, basically.
It's a fantastic venture, hopefully one that can be managed to produce some quantity of exceptional tea, and get that resort the broader recognition it deserves for setting all that up. Coincidentally my parents have visited there before, and said that it's absolutely amazing. They had a heat-pump system in their house earlier on, extracting home heat from spring water, so that general geothermal energy subject was of particular interest to them.
The Chena resort's main purpose related to setting up winter growing environments is to provide food for resort guests and staff. The power generation part may have been completed in part just because it's possible, beyond the obvious commercial justification, that the numbers add up, that it works out to be lower in cost than using generators for off-grid remote power supply. Jenny said that the resort owner was involved with creating the Alaskan pipeline, and is currently undertaking a second geothermal power generation project somewhere in the Aluetian islands, so for sure there is as complex and compelling a story about all that infrastructure development as relates to the tea themes. Maybe I'll look into that later.
To speed this along I'll switch over to a Q & A summary format.
Just how cold does it get there? Down to -50 or 60 F in the winter, or -50 C at the coldest, way too cold for any plants not evolved to go completely dormant in that kind of environment, to endure a very hard freeze, which tea plants can't survive. The "high tunnel" environment uses two plastic layers (that are translucent, allowing for some external light contact), using an interior air space as effective insulation.
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another look at that space before all the plants were in |
How does the geothermal heating work? Hot water from a moderately hot version of hot springs (not like Yellowstone, where plenty of the pools are boiling) is pumped through pipes in the ground to maintain ground temperature. The plants are growing in the ground, not located in pots. Piping within the structure also heats the air, moderated by thermostat systems. It doesn't sound so different than baseboard hot water heating, commonly used in some US homes, just based on a different heat source, with more sophisticated control demands, requiring flow moderation to maintain a desired temperature range.
Isn't humidity level also a concern? Sure, of course. The resort has built pond-foggers to increase humidity (so a type of humidifier), similar to what is used in mushroom growing environments.
Can the tea thrive in the natural environment in the summer? Yes, it does. The very long light daytime period doesn't seem to negatively affect the tea plants, and the local environment climate range is quite suitable. There is more of a concern related to cool period dormancy requirements for the plants, that they "expect" some form of cooler time period related to cooler season exposure to support a natural rest cycle. Adjusting to support or optimize that is an ongoing work in progress, coordinated along with resort facilities staff. It's a conditions parameter that the same building is also used to grow vegetables, so the goal is to maintain an environment that all the types of plants growing there can thrive in.
Have you produced any finished tea yet? There aren't so many plants growing now, only 40, and the venture only started in 2021, less than two years ago, so actual production has been very limited, but they did make small test batches. The tea turned out very well. Of course dialing in optimum processing takes practice, and a limited withering time to soften the leaves caused the tea to break up during processing early on, but the modified version of green tea produced was very pleasant, very smooth and flavorful. Jenny thinks that the high mineral content from using water from the hot springs might help give the tea a unique and pleasant character, based on it seeming distinctive.
Plant types (sourced from the Camforest nursery, in South Carolina) include Sochi Russian versions and other Chinese varieties, so a mix of types.
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a better look at the plants |
What are the main problems that you've encountered? Shipping the plants that far was a concern; they needed to be flown the last routing step to limit how long they needed to go without water. Sorting out all the details was a concern, but especially inconsistencies related to temperature variation in different parts of the growing space. It's not as if the facilities aren't under good control, but matching conditions in relation to other plant types requirements has been an ongoing challenge. Just learning tea plant type reactions to growing conditions inputs involves a learning curve.
Are there plans to ramp up production, to explore turning this into more of a commercial venture, instead of an experiment? That depends on coordination with the resort partner, that owner, and for now limited space has been allocated. It may work to increase scale, as proof of concept develops further. Based on early trials the tea could be exceptional, and good quality, positive aspects, and novelty could enable sales at the higher end of market range. Building an additional high tunnel growing area might require too much investment, but over time that higher volume scale could develop organically, in ways that are hard to foresee well ahead of time.
If someone wanted to visit to see Northern Lights (a different subject), when would be a good time to visit? February or March is considered a good time, or in the late fall. They can be seen in the peak winter period, Dec-Jan, but it's quite cold then, and the "polar night" effect causes darkness most of the day. There is currently an ice sculpture contest as a main tourism attraction going on (the World Ice Art Championships). The day that we spoke (Feb. 18) temperatures were up to 8 F during the day, and down to -16 F at night. That's bitter cold, for someone living in the tropics now, but not all that bad for them. For me growing up in the Northern US East Coast, and later living in Colorado, it's familiar range, if a bit cool.
Further off topic, my family visited the edge of the Arctic in Murmansk, Russia, to see the Northern lights, right at the winter solstice, at the very end of the year. It was down to -27 C then, if I remember right, -17 F, but their temperatures are moderated by "warm" air coming off the sea there (warm in a loose sense; warm for that far north). The polar night effect was really cool, for being there for a short week of time frame. Jenny said that Northern Lights aren't best viewed the furthest north, as one might imagine, that there is a band slightly further south where the effect is even stronger, presumably related to how the magnetic field works out (my guess; she didn't get into that part).
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a dogsled camp outing on that Murmansk trip, in mid-afternoon |
When I saw the Northern Lights I was a little disappointed that they appeared almost completely black and white, since at very low light levels our eyes can't see color (the rods and cones theme), but Jenny said that the brighter displays actually look green. A camera can always see the true color, so in our case it was a little odd not seeing them as it did.
I want to thank Jenny for being so open and clear about all those details. Near Arctic sustainable tea production, using geothermal heating and power generation, is an interesting subject on a few different levels. I wish them the best related to pushing further with development, to expanding and scaling up production, and dialing in all the levels of inputs.
Jenny's tea vending business page includes more on her background, and a Youtube channel includes more tea background videos, and podcast style content. A recent version with Nicole of Tea For Me Please was nice to watch; they're both personable, and that was a good match for their well-informed perspectives filling in a range of tea themes. Or Sipping Streams Tea has Instagram and Facebook profiles, but those are more about their tea business, not focused on this geothermal production subject.
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