SCSouth Carolina field entry
Charleston Tea Garden
Wadmalaw Island, SC
A Wadmalaw Island tea store on a 127-acre working garden, where tea grown on the property is sold beside a free glass-walled factory tour, a tea bar and paid trolley rides through the fields.
Charleston Tea Garden connects tea retail and tasting directly to the fields, greenhouse and factory behind the product.
Field notes
Why it belongs
Tea and gift retail, tasting, a working 127-acre tea garden, glass-walled factory viewing and field-and-greenhouse trolley tours.
Visitors can buy tea where it is grown and processed, then look onto the factory or ride through the crop that supplies the store.
Charleston Tea Garden operates a visitor store on a 127-acre Wadmalaw Island tea garden. The Gift Shop sells Garden-grown tea and several hundred tea-related items, and its tea bar lets visitors sample current selections. A free self-guided factory tour begins upstairs in the shop, where a glass gallery overlooks processing equipment; production is not guaranteed to be running during every visit. Separately ticketed trolley tours last roughly 35–40 minutes and travel through the tea fields with a greenhouse stop. The Garden describes the property as America’s only tea garden; that promotional superlative stays attributed to the business. Bigelow acquired the garden in 2003 in partnership with longtime tea grower Bill Hall.
Store contents
What you will find
Directory categories
Known for
- 127-acre tea garden
- Garden-grown tea
- Gift Shop
- Tea bar
- Free factory tour
- Factory viewing gallery
- Trolley field tours
- Greenhouse stop