Tea Terroir: Native Bergamot

LAST YEAR, I taught my kids about the ships, the costumes, and the tea involved in the Boston Tea Party, but I missed part of the significance of that December night in 1773. The Chinese tea that colonists were drinking — and throwing overboard — was part of a dependence on nonnative plants that connected colonists to their European homes.

After traveling thousands of miles from the only home they’d ever known, it isn’t surprising that most colonists longed for familiarity. Colonists missed indigo, which made a distinctive blue dye and had been easier to obtain in Europe. While families brought vegetable seeds with them, many of the plant products the colonists associated with home were either imported to Europe from other colonies or grown from plants that couldn’t survive in their new environment. Tea, like indigo, was one of these plants.

Any new immigrant will tell you that food