Nerada Tea facts for kids

Nerada Tea is an Australian company that makes tea and coffee. It is the biggest tea producer in Australia.

The Story of Nerada Tea

The Cutten Brothers' Farm

The story of Nerada Tea began a long time ago, in 1886. Four brothers named James, Leonard, Sidney, and Herbert Cutten chose some land near Mission Beach in Bingil Bay. They called their new farm Bicton.

The brothers worked hard to clear the thick forest and turn it into farmland. They also got help from the local Aboriginal people, with whom they had a good relationship.

The Cuttens planted both tea and coffee. However, it was hard to get enough people to pick the tea leaves all the time. So, they had more success with coffee. They even had their own coffee mill and sold their coffee under the name Bicton Coffee. The brothers did well, making their home bigger and adding a sawmill. They also built a wooden railway line to move wood to their stone wharf, where their boats could dock safely.

Facing Challenges

The brothers faced many problems. In 1890, a big cyclone caused a lot of damage. Then, in 1902, there was a drought followed by fires. Many coffee trees were destroyed, and Herbert Cutten was badly burned.

Later, the brothers lost most of their workers. The Queensland Government moved Aboriginal people to special settlements, which limited how many could be employed. Another cyclone hit in 1911.

The start of World War I made things even harder. Many ships that carried the brothers' products were used for the war instead. The worst blow came in 1918 with a huge cyclone. This storm was one of the strongest ever to hit Queensland. The town of Innisfail was almost completely destroyed. In Bingil Bay, a massive tidal surge washed away the brothers' big stone wharf. Their entire farm was practically ruined. The brothers, who were in their sixties, rebuilt their home, but they never replanted their orchards or coffee farms. The jungle grew back over the land.

A New Beginning with Dr. Maruff

Years later, in the 1950s, a doctor named Alan Maruff rediscovered the Cutten brothers' old farm. Dr. Maruff was born in India and had settled in Innisfail. He became interested in growing tea. His wife's family lived in Darjeeling, a famous tea-growing area in India. She noticed that the land around Innisfail looked similar.

So, Dr. Maruff searched for the Cutten brothers' old estate. He found the wild tea plants that had grown from the Cuttens' original, unsuccessful tea plantation. These plants had grown into very large trees, with smaller tea plants growing underneath them. Dr. Maruff collected hundreds of seeds and young plants. He planted them in a nursery behind his doctor's office.

In 1958, Dr. Maruff started the first commercial tea farm in Australia since 1886. He planted tea in the Nerada valley, south of Cairns, Queensland. This became the very successful Nerada Tea. The old tea plants from the Cutten brothers' farm became the foundation for a thriving tea industry. Dr. Maruff even supplied seeds from Nerada to new tea farms in Papua New Guinea.

Nerada Tea Grows

In 1969, another company called Tea Estates of Australia (TEA) started planting tea next to the Nerada farm. In 1971, Nerada Tea Estates (NTE) opened Australia's first factory just for making tea. Two years later, in 1973, TEA bought NTE. They stopped selling tea in bulk and started selling it under the "Nerada" brand name.

The next year, TEA opened a small packing factory in Innisfail. In 1991, they opened a much larger tea factory in Glen Allyn, near Malanda. The following year, they opened an even bigger packaging plant in Brisbane.

Nerada Tea Today

Today, the Nerada Tea farm and factory are located at 933 Glen Allyn Road (17°23′01″S 145°40′02″E / 17.3835°S 145.6672°E / -17.3835; 145.6672 (Nerada Tea)). Nerada Tea is the biggest supplier of Australian-grown tea. They have over 400 ha (990 acres) (about 1,000 acres) of tea plants in the Cairns Region. From these plants, they produce 1,500,000 kg (3,300,000 lb) (1.5 million kilograms) of black tea every year.

See also

• Tea in Australia
• List of oldest companies in Australia
• List of tea companies

Images for kids

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  A view of the Nerada Tea Plantation in 1986.