Gorreana Tea Plantations

Gorreana Tea Plantations is located on the island of São Miguel, in the Azores. Since the beginning of the 19th century, tea, just like tobacco and beet, was planted on the island to replace the decline of the orange production. About 20 tea factories were located on the island, but just Gorreana could maintain a continuous production to this day.

The plantation was founded in 1883 by Ermelinda Gago da Câmara, heiress of a land called “Gorreana”. Making use of a clayey and acidic soil, she managed to produce tea of good quality. Later, her granddaughter, Angelina Gago da Câmara, married Jaime Hintze, who was responsible for mechanizing the production of the plant and for creating a mini-hydro near the factory in 1926. It is mainly because of this change of power supply that the factory could survive to this day. Most of these machines that were introduced by Jaime Hintze are still the ones used for the production of the Gorreana tea to this day.

Visitors to the factory are allowed to freely walk the tea fields and observe all the steps to make tea, from the harvest to the packaging.