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Tea was first grown in South Africa on an experimental basis at the Durban botanical gardens in 1850.  

In 1877, Sir JC Hulett developed the first tea estate in Kersney near Stanger.  He used migrant labour from India and by 1940 the crops had expanded to approximately 800 hectares.  Sugar cane farming then became a more lucrative crop to grow along the coastal belt.
The tea was removed and replaced by sugar cane.  

In 1961, tea was once again introduced for two main reasons:

	The large colonial population, who were tea lovers, were faced with international sanctions and were therefore forced to become self-sufficient.
	To create job opportunities as tea farming was/is a very labour intensive operation.

This was the start of Sapekoe Tea Estates.  The name was derived from South Africa (S.A.) and the Chinese word for tea - "pekoe".

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