TEA WITH francesco piattelli, organic olive farmer

Have you ever smelled one of the flowers? It’s inebriating

Every year, I host the Masha Tea writing retreat in an olive oil grove in Tuscany. (Reach out if you want to come with us in July!) Francesco and Francesca are the couple that grow the olives and have the retreat center and sometimes also grow herbs for Masha Tea (this past summer, chamomile.)

I recorded an interview with Francesco on a long walk around the property. Here it is, slightly edited for length : TEA WITH francesco piattelli

Maria (M) Oh look there’s one sunflower in that field!

Francesco (F) Survived from last year!

M Do they harvest the seeds from these sunflowers or are they purely aesthetic?

F They’re purely for the seeds. For sunflower oil, sunflower seeds.

M Outside of the olive trees, what are your favorite plants at Maraviglia?

F I have a special relationship with the cucumbers because here in Italy, dill pickles do not exist so I grow my own dill, grow my own cucumber to make pickles. And mustard seeds. There’s a spot near Francesca’s house where it grows sporadic so mustard is another one that I love.

The other plant around Maraviglia that is fundamental and an unsung hero is the marigold. Because, obviously we are all organic, so we do have influxes of pests that come. Marigold attracts to many ladybugs and the ladybugs eat the aphids that generally attack many, many fruit trees and vegetable garden plants. The marigolds sprinkled around always help. And they smell so good.

M Do you pick them for bouquets?

F Yea, we plant a lot. And all the ones that you see are always propagated. Because they dry out, they make the seeds, you leave the seeds there, and every spring they spring up again. That’s also why they’re cool. They’re independent, they’re resilient.

M Whoa, these flowers are really incredible. Is that proteus? [not referring to marigold, just having a short attention span on a beautiful walk]

F The flower looks like the flower of an aloe vera or a succulus.

M What about herbs you guys use to make fresh tea?

F The herbs that we have around, we use them for many reasons. Mainly for cooking and for tea. For teas we use lemon balm. We have a medicinal garden right next to the yoga shala. I want to integrate new plants. We also have hyssop which is nice and then for cooking we have lemon thyme, and eliscrisium, which we talked about in the licorice family. Closer to the house we have oregano, basil, and two or three different types of mint which we put in our water and mint tea.

These are pomegranates. We have baby pomegranates too. Talking about color, this is incredible.

M When do the pomegranates come out?

F This is the baby flower, the bloom, and let’s see if there’s one that’s been pollinated... After pollination, if the pollination is successful - not in this case - this becomes the base of the pomegranate. We have a little [pomegranate tree] right in front of the pool as well. They’re very productive. Ours makes about 20 pomegranates, this one is probably like 50.

M Outside of harvesting the chamomile here, are there other herbs that grow wild that are good for tea? What about licorice? Because I remember when I was in Sicily last time, your friend pulled out a lot of licorice for me and he told me it grows wild. Like the root.

F In Calabria they definitely have licorice. I don’t think it grows wild here [in Tuscany]. What we have here is a different version, what I showed you earlier. I think licorice is more in the South of Italy.

Oh here’s a nice surprise. These are super sweet [we eat from the plum tree]

If you guys have a container with you, we can make a pie for tomorrow. This side of the tree will be more mature so I think it would be better for a plum tart. The whole philosophy of pruning or controlling fruit trees in general doesn’t mean that they produce more. This is still very fruitful and it’s basically an abandoned plant.

[We collect plums]

M Do you have citrus plants?

F We have one lemon tree in front that bloomed so well this year. The citrus flower smell is one of my favorites. Have you ever smelled one of the flowers? It’s inebriating.

(video of the retreat from last year by Sage Leopold)

Some previous TEA WITH interviews for your reading pleasure :)

Alexis Badiyi stylist
Alice Waese jewelry designer
Ashley Harris of Don’t Let Disco
Clemence Poles Passerby
Colleen Herman painter
Conway Liao of Hudson Wilder
Kerrilynn Pamer CAP Beauty founder
Natasha Pickowicz chef
Ope Omojola jewelry designer
Sage Leopold Panik Flower, lead singer
Sydney Gore of Architectural Digest
Tal Silberstein Colbo
Woldy Reyes chef