PHOTO ESSAY

Top; The process of tea making is shown and how the process moves in stages.

Left; An array of equipment is used to take the tea from its plant state to a finished product. Right; Gipson shows how the process works.

“We would do large tours where people could come, bring a group, and do a 2-3 day tour making tea from start to finish,” McDonald said.

“So we took it all online. We just had to figure out how to make tourism a digital thing.”

As a gay-owned company in small town Mississippi, McDonald said it is really a non-issue now. While they have had people in the past drive by and yell rude things out the window, for the most part they haven’t had issues.

“People have been great here, (but) our customer base isn’t here,” McDonald said. “The people who would have an issue with us aren’t paying $1,000 for a pound of tea.”

While the tea farm is out in the countryside of Lincoln County, Gipson said he is still surprised when people say

McDonald and Gipson faced a lot of trial and error when starting their farm out, but they soon found their way.

C A TERI N G

they didn’t know Brookhaven had a tea farm.

“Somebody all the way across the country will go ‘Oh yeah, that place in Mississippi,’” Gipson said. “It’s really amazing that some people know us across the world but people in town don’t even know who we are.”

Night Lights A look into Ole Brook when the sun goes down

Photos By Gracie Byrne

While many photos of downtown Brookhaven show its beauty during the daytime, there aren’t many photos showing this same area at night. Downtown at night is just as beautiful as during the day.