Tea Machine from Taiwan

After the heavy rains and cold winter here in Portugal, spring is finally approaching. In our tea garden, the plants are slowly waking up, and the first young shoots are starting to appear. For now, we’re quite relieved that the harvest is beginning a little later than usual. This gives us hope that the drying machine might arrive in the middle of the harvest, so we’ll still have a chance to test it this year.

At the moment, the machine is being adapted to meet EU certification requirements before shipment. We’re crossing our fingers that this process goes smoothly so it can soon be on its way to Portugal.

We’ve now reached the halfway point of our campaign and are getting close to 50% of our goal. To help us make the rest possible, please share our campaign with your friends and contacts. Every bit of support makes a big difference!

Making tea is a kind of magic. From the very same leaf of Camellia sinensis, you can create all colours of tea — from white and green to oolong and black. While making a herbal infusion simply means preserving the natural flavour of peppermint or lemon verbena, processing tea is different: you actually create its flavour through several delicate steps.

At Chá Camélia, all our teas are hand-picked, and most of the processing is done in an artisanal way — with plenty of human touch and no AI involved. By the way, our tea is truly women-powered: 6 of the 7 members of Chá Camélia are women (one of them currently pregnant!) and just one man. This is quite special, considering it’s an agricultural project — and that’s also why our campaign is featured in the category «She Makes It.»

The new harvest is already on the horizon. Usually our spring harvest starts in early April and lasts until mid-May, continuing again in June and July with the summer harvest. It’s a long and intense period, and the last processing step is essential for every type of tea: the drying. That’s why we’ve decided to invest in a larger, more professional drying machine that will help us maintain consistent quality when working with larger quantities of leaves.

We’ve already reached almost 40% of our goal — a great step forward! But we still need all the help we can get to spread the word about our campaign.

The first week is coming to an end, and we’ve reached our 15% funding goal. I am very grateful for all the support and the overwhelmingly positive feedback I have received from so many people for our project.

I’d like to share some impressions of our tea farm through the new photos and invite you to celebrate with us. We’ve just set the date for our 15th anniversary celebration on 27 September 2026 in the tea garden. Details about the event are available in the reward section «Ticket Event: Festa do Chá» (Tea Party).

Our tea garden is located 20 minutes from Porto Airport and 30 minutes from Porto city center. There is plenty of accommodation in the nearby city of Vila do Conde or in Porto itself, and we can help you find the right option for you.

Alternative options to visit us are the rewards guided tea garden tour, private tasting and Harvest Experience 🌟