THE STATE HOSPITALITY BEVERAGE
Tea

South Carolina grown tea was designated the official Hospitality Beverage of the State by Act No. 31, 1995. South Carolina is the first place in the United States where tea was grown having been planted in the Lowcountry outside of Charleston in 1799 at what is now Middleton Place. Now the direct descendants of those very plants have been restored to their former grandeur at the Charleston Tea Plantation, a lush, subtropical tea farm, nestled on a serene sea island near the historic City of Charleston.