UHI Inverness horticulture students to unveil new tea shed that grows sustainable brews
A TEA shed with a difference will open this weekend at UHI Inverness’s Balloch campus, offering hundreds of tea plants grown by students in the garden they helped create.
The HNC Horticulture students at the Scottish School of Forestry developed the project to demonstrate the simplicity of growing your own tea leaves as an alternative to using tea bags that may release microplastics.
Nearly three hundred small tea plants are currently being cultivated by the students in readiness for an open day at the campus on Saturday 16 May when the shed will be launched.
The plants, grown in planters on the shed, will be handed out to visitors to take home, and it is hoped that when they make a cup of tea they will reach for the tea plant and a strainer, instead of a teabag.
The project has been a campus-wide effort with a focus on sustainability. The wood for the shed came from a blown-down larch tree in the grounds, which was felled and milled by forestry students and then built by joinery students on site. The shed was designed by HNC Horticulture student Emily Marshall who has a background in architectural studies.
The tea shed is located in a garden that has been transformed from waste ground in just three years by the campus students on little to no budget, using donated plants and materials that have been found, reused and recycled.
The project has been funded by the UHI Rebel Fund which awards financial support to students to run an initiative between January and May 2026 that supports sustainability and challenges how things are usually done to encourage people to act or think differently.
The UHI Rebel Fund has been made possible through the support of tartan clothing company Prickly Thistle and its founder Clare Campbell. Horticulture lecturer Annabel Harper said:
“The Rebel funding is given to a sustainable project that involves a knowledge transfer, and the students were aware that many people do not know that tea bags contain microplastics. They thought it would be a good way to educate people, to show them that it is actually easy to grow your own tea plants in a small yoghurt pot right up to a large garden. Everyone who comes along to the event can have their own tea plant, take the leaves, pop them into a little strainer, make their own tea and reduce the amount of microplastics in their body. The students pitched that idea and they won, and the project became a cross-department effort. Emily, who used to be an architecture student, designed it, the Level 6 Woodland Skills and Forestry and Urban Woodland Operations students felled and milled the tree and gave it straight to the joinery students who built two sheds – the other one is next to the kitchen and will be used as a herb garden.”
A variety of tea plants, selected for their beneficial properties, have been cultivated using an irrigation system with a solar pump. Approximately 270 tea plants will be handed out during the Applicant and Information Day at the Balloch campus on Saturday 16 May, which includes forestry activities from 10am to 3pm. Annabel added:
“Everyone is going to leave with a brown bag containing a tea plant of their choice, a little strainer and information about microplastics in tea bags. We want to show them that it is perfectly simple to make sustainable tea.”
HNC Horticulture student Emily Marshall designed the shed. Emily said:
"It is important that the tea shed is a sustainable project - no plastic involved. It is all about what you can do yourself at home, there is always space at home to have a vertical garden, no matter how neat a space you have, you will have an area to grow plants."
Fellow HNC Horticulture student Frank Lovell helped choose the different varieties of tea plants. Frank said:
“I like herbal remedies, and we are focussing on what these plants can do for you internally and externally. This could be the first time anyone has had an introduction to planting – they can take one home, and this could be the start of a whole new hobby, a new experience, something they can incorporate into their diet that will benefit them.”
Other activities will also be laid on during the event, including a chance to plant your own tree, go on a tree identification trail and dress up as a forestry worker. Several forestry and nature organisations will also be in attendance.
Visitors will also have a chance to visit the garden that has been created by different cohorts of HNC Horticulture students over the last three years, with help from other students and staff on campus. The garden has been virtually cost-free as it has been created using reused or recycled materials, supplies gifted by companies and plants donated by Inverness Botanic Gardens. The organic produce the students grow is used as ingredients for dishes served in the campus canteen.
The latest addition to the garden is a patio area made from slabs laid out by Level 5 Woodland Skills Intermediate students. It features a willow tree fallen by the roadside, that was cut down, replanted and will be fashioned into arches when it grows back.
Find out more: Events - Applicant and Information Day | Saturday 16 May, 10am to 2pm- UHI Inverness