Timothy Gipson shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Hi Timothy, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your story, experiences and insights with our readers. Let’s jump right in with an interesting one: What is a normal day like for you right now?
A normal day for me right now consists of getting up and getting started on any farm work that needs to be done. We are short staffed this year so all the work is falling to me to get done. So i stay very busy
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am Timothy Gipson. I am one of the owners of the tea farm. I run the farm and work it. I am the main processor of our teas. I also do all the blending, packaging, labeling and make all the other items we sell.
Our brand is doing everything we can to make sure that we are sustainable and transparent. We are open to any and all questions about oar farm. We do not hide anything. We believe that the more people know about us the more they will like our products.
We also work with 8 different universities on tea research as well as MD Anderson. We work closely with MS State on many projects, due to them being the closest and our state university. Currently MS State is working on a fertilizer trial. They are trying to find organic fertilizers that will give the right amount of nitrogen for tea growing. Currently there is no organic source for the amount of Nitrogen that tea needs. So in order to be organic you have to use pesticides to keep our native bugs from eating them. So for the time being we have to use conventional fertilizer so that we do not have to use pesticides.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
My family always new who I was and what I was capable of. I have always had a green thumb. They have always been there for me and always will be.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
There was a time when we almost gave up. We had a BIG learning curve in the beginning. Tea was never grown in the US on a large scale. There had been trials by Lipton and other people had tried growing it but it was never feasible due to labor and the fact that they were all trying to do commodity tea.
Our first 2 major plantings we lost due to not knowing. Tea around the world is p[anted in the fall. So our fist major planting we did the the fall. However, we have a drought in the fall before winter. So, they had to major stresses back to back and they could not take it. We lost the whole planting of 4 acres. The second planting we did, we started in the spring. The irrigation and drainage was not right and we lost all those as well. So we did another planting. Planted in the spring fixed the irrigation issues and everything seemed to be going well.
We got called to Hawaii for a tea venture and was gone for 6 months. We left people in charge that had the skills to take care of everything. They did not take care of the farm while we were gone and when we got back it was over grown in weeds. We thought we had lost all the plants again. We were ready to give up and be done.
I started looking through the fields and noticed that thee were still living plants under those weeds. We were not sure how many but they were there. Then we got notice that some teas we made off the small planting of 1 gallon pots won 3 awards. This gave us a new since that we could do this. So we decided rather than giving up we would clean up those weeds and see how many plants actually made it. It took us 3 weeks to get it all back under control but to our surprise we still had the majority of the section still alive.
This gave us even more hope. So we decided not to give up and here we are now.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
My close friends would tell you that the most important thing top me is my family and friends. They would also tell you that it is very important to me to make sure we put out a good product for people to enjoy.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
We are still in expansion of the farm. It takes 5 years for a tea plant to grown to a harvestable size. After that it is still another 2 to 3 years before that money is recoupled. Expansion takes time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://greatmsteacompany.com
- Instagram: greatmsteaco
- Facebook: The Great Mississippi Tea Company
- Youtube: The Great Mississippi Tea Company
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
