The Palmetto State - SC Coast

South Carolina's coast 

(Sightseeing)

April 6, 2018 - April 11, 2018

We both like tea so a visit to the Charleston Tea Plantation seemed in order.  It's owned and run by a 4th generation certified tea master.  Who knew there was such a thing.

Did you know tea leaves come from a specific species of the Camellia?  We didn't!
Camellia sinensis is the plant used for tea.
All tea, black, green, white and Oolong are made from the same leaves!

New Camellia plants are being readied for the field.

The plants are allowed to grow for 7-8 weeks then his specialized tractor
harvests the fresh new growth by sheering it off the top.
The cuttings are then brought into the plant where they are processed into tea.
In under 24 hours, freshly picked Camellia leaves are turned into tea.

Step 1: the withering bed reduces the amount of water in the leaves by passing air over them.

Step 2: the machine rotates horizontally causing the tea leaves to roll up into thin wiry pieces. 
It also breaks up the leaves a bit so they are ready for the next step.

Step 3: Oxidation. The leaves are laid out at a constant temperature for a period of 30 minutes to 2 hours.
The amount of time determines the strength of the tea (i.e. color and taste).  Enzymes in the leaves change the color from green to beige to dark brown (depending on the type of tea being made).

Step 4: Drying.  The dryers remove the remaining water from the leaves so it can be sorted and packaged.

In the gift shop you can taste various ice teas (above) or hot teas (around the corner to the left).
The also have a very nice selection of gift items.

We made a trip to Hilton Head Island to see the Coastal Discovery Museum.  The island is NOT named after the Hilton Hotel family but rather after Captain William Hilton who discovered the headlands of the island in 1663.  He named it after himself.  

The coastal area of South Carolina is referred to as the Lowcountry.  It consists of untold numbers of islands, bays, rivers, swamps and marshes.

Salt marsh at the Coastal Discovery Museum

These days Hilton Head Island is a very popular and expensive place. 
You can see some of the large houses just beyond the marsh.

The inhabitants of the tidal marshes.

The fern growing on the oak branch in to top picture is called resurrection fern.  In dry periods it shrivels up, turns brown and basically looks dead.  After a rain it turns bright green and once again looks very much alive - thus resurrecting itself.

The Spanish moss in the lower picture is not Spanish nor is it a moss. 
It's actually a bromelaid, a perennial herb in the pineapple family. 
It's an epiphyte which means it takes it's nutrients from the air and any debris that lands on it.
It does not harm the host plant upon which it grows.

There's some good eating in this part of the country.

The Caw Caw Interpretive Center is located in an area where several rice plantations once existed.  

We were surprised to learn that rice, not cotton, was the primary cash crop in South Carolina.
As a very labor intensive crop it depended heavily on slave labor.

The horrors of the journey from Africa to the new world cannot be overstated.

The land was turned from swamps like this (full of alligators and snakes)....

...into rice fields like this!
We later learned that it took 15 years to go from swamp land to the first rice harvest!

A mind blowing statistic!  All done with slave labor of course.

Numerous rice plantations were found in each of the places marked on the map.

The "task" work was generally backbreaking.

The fields were flooded and drained several times through out the growing season.
They used water "gates" called trunks to let water in and out.  The important thing
was to allow only fresh water into the fields.  Salt water had to be kept out or it would damage the soil.

These long rectangular boats were used to navigate the channels beside the rice fields.

One of the flat boats filled with harvested rice and the slaves who worked the fields.

South Carolina was driven out of the rice business when other states like Texas and California began to grow it.
Because the "land" had originally been swamp, it would not support production machinery. 
As a result they could not compete with states that were growing rice on solid land.
These areas in the lowcountry are now managed for the benefit of wildlife, an important job as more and more habitat is lost to development.