[3] Smaller scale commercial farms are in the states of Alabama, Hawaii, Oregon, South Carolina, and Washington.
Lower production costs of tea's main rival, coffee, also helped prevent it from establishing a foothold.
[citation needed] Junius Smith succeeded in growing tea commercially in Greenville, South Carolina, from 1848 until his death in 1853.
[9] In the 1870s, some 200 acres of land near Summerville, South Carolina, were leased for an experimental station, using seeds from China, India, and Japan.
A change of commissioners in 1884 resulted in a report faulting the climate as unsuitable, and the Newington Plantation near Summerville was abandoned.
[9] Congress later appropriated $10,000 for a second experimental tea farm in the Summerville area, called the Pinehurst Plantation, located just one mile from the previously terminated effort, and received Patent Office permission to experiment with plants left at the older government station.
[13] Losing money and nearly bankrupt, in 2003 the plantation was sold to Bigelow Tea Company at a court auction for $1.28 million[14] and was temporarily closed for renovation in order to attract tourists and boost its revenues.
[15] As part of the Lipton study in South Carolina, an out-station was established in Fairhope, Alabama as well as other select locations in the Southern US.
[17][18] In 2000 horticulturist Francis Zee found a strain of Camellia sinensis, the tea plant, that can flourish in the tropical climate and volcanic soil of Hawaii.
Minto Island Growers near Salem, Oregon has begun to market small quantities of their own tea.
[26] A Burlington, Washington farm with grew approximately 5 acres of tea from 2010 to 2016, but suspended production after labor disputes.