Junga Chai, LLC

Junga Chai is basically a tea farm but we grow other vegetables, grains and flowers. We planted 70,000 tea seeds in 2 greenhouses that are 131 ft x 28 ft. We are still an emerging farm and killed most of the tea plants in our first year but we have been improving. Our surviving tea plants are just over a year now. We begin picking our own tea in 2 more years. We are anxiously waiting for that but in the meantime we are brewing Kombucha using tea sourced elsewhere. We also have our tea blends using lavender, ginger, apple, peaches grown in Rockbridge county. With the seasonal vegetables we are making Sauerkraut, Kimchi and pickles. We are experimentally growing rice and other grains.
We make an Indian Rice cake called Idly with the rice and a soup called Sambhar with lentils, okra, tomatoes. We grow our own okra, eggplant, tomatoes. The rice and lentils are on an experimental basis. The first year growing rice was late and we lost our harvest. The second year we had a harvest but was meager but we are improving.
In terms of products we want to sell:

1. Tea pouches
2. Tea gift sets
3. Tea infusers
4. Brewed Tea (both cold and hot)
5. Kombucha
6. Kimchi
7. Sauerkraut
8. Frozen Indian Curries
9. Idly with Sambhar and coconut chutney
10. Coconut, condensed milk balls (Somewhat like the mounds candy but without the chocolate covering)

We are currently selling on Wednesday at the Lexington, VA farmers market. Our greenhouses and farmhouses are on a 4.75 acre plot in Lexington, VA. The tea plants in our greenhouses will be transplanted onto a 140 acre hillside in Rockbridge Baths. We haven't started transplanting to final spot yet but when the transplanting is complete it would make us the largest tea farm in the US. This is at least 5-10 years away.