Nicola Davis

speaker

498 appearances 6 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 18 Aug

Nicola Davis’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 6 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 3.

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Science Weekly · Revisited: A Scottish tea mystery, episode one – green shoots · 21 Jul 2026 podcast

And there was nothing, it seemed, he didn't know about tea.

As we chatted, he explained to me how he'd been successfully propagating Camellia sinensis for several years, his wee tea plantation now boasting 14,000 plants.

The plantation had scooped a gold award from the Salon du Thé in Paris for its Dalryoch smoked white tea, and was selling to luxury hotels like the Dorchester and the Balmoral in Edinburgh.

It seemed eccentric, amusing, and the sort of plucky thing that was worth reporting.

More than 300 miles away in Scotland, someone else heard about his story too.

Drinks writer Richard Ross was intrigued.

Richard exudes a calm confidence, his light blue eyes giving away that he's both very shrewd and has a knack for recognising the ridiculous.

I met up with him recently in the Butterfly and Pig Tea Room, a cavernous cafe just off a busy road in the centre of Glasgow.

It was filled with dark wooden furniture, mismatched cups and saucers and lots of novelty teapots.

After a scone with cream and jam, alongside our Earl Grey's and English breakfasts, Richard explained his journey into growing tea.

All these threads fell into place with a moment of serendipity on a long drive.

According to Tam, these were tea plants that he had been selectively breeding and cultivating to better suit Scottish conditions.

They were Scottish tea plants, as far as it was possible.

Tam also put Richard in touch with the other growers around Scotland, and together they set up a sort of cooperative called the Scottish Tea Growers Association.

And Tam was at the centre of it all.

Because Tam was already processing and selling tea, he was going to be the middleman for the hotels and shops too, taking a commission from the tea he sold.

Their Scottish tea would inevitably be exclusive small batches that came with a much higher price tag than your average cuppa.

While Richard's tea hibernated through the chilly winter months, Tam continued to promote his new venture.

As spring drew near, a French news agency decided to visit, as they were keen to see not just Tam's plantation, but also one of the others too.

Tam explained that before he could stop them, Richard's entire crop had been picked.

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