The owners of Western Australia's only commercial green tea operation say they are determined to make it work, despite a tough first year sales.

Maria and Ron Kemp, who live in Northcliffe in the state's south-west, began selling their tea a year ago after a decade of growing the shrubs and setting up the business.

Everything from the growing to the processing and packaging is done on site, with the Kemps investing over a million dollars in processing equipment from Japan.

Despite the crop being pushed as a new industry by the State Government 10 years ago, so far the Kemps are the only people in the state to have turned it into a commercial operation.

The pair hoped the investment would pay off, and that 'local' and 'clean' niches would push sales.

But Mr Kemp said it had been a "hard slog".

"We thought because it was grown locally, with no pesticides and nothing in the air, that it would [have an edge]."

"The easy part is here in the paddock.

"When you have to go outside the paddock and sell stuff around the state, that's the difficult part. It's getting known."

Mr Kemp said in addition to that they had to sell their product at a competitive price, with production costs more expensive in Australia than elsewhere.

Green tea health benefits

The Kemps are passionate about having 100 per cent Western Australian-grown and processed green tea. ( ABC Rural: Tyne Logan )

It is the widely accepted health benefits of green tea that is one of the main drivers behind the Kemps' passion for the product.

According to research, there is some evidence to suggest that green tea may help to improve risk factors for heart disease such as cholesterol and blood pressure, as well as aid weight loss.

Ms Kemp said she drank it every day.

"It's good for everything, if you read up how good green tea is it's really good for you," she said.

The Sencha green tea is grown from the same plant as the more popular black tea, however it goes through a different processing technique that does not include oxidisation.

Green tea also contains about half the caffeine content of black tea.

Industry in Australia

The Kemps have invested a lot of money into Japanese harvesting and processing equipment. ( ABC Rural: Tyne Logan )

The Kemps planted their green tea shrubs 10 years ago as a way of diversifying their farm.

At the time green tea was being spruiked by the Federal Government and the then Department of Agriculture and Food WA.

With no nearby processing facilities, however, many people did not take up growing the crop.

The Kemps are the only green tea operation in Western Australia, but there are a handful of family-owned, 100 per cent locally grown green tea operations in Australia.

This includes the Tasmanian business Dry Ideas owned by scientists Gordon and Jane Brown, who began growing the oriental crop in the 1990s.

Dr Brown said he believed there was a strong local demand for Australian green tea and there was an opportunity for more people to try their hand at the industry.

"I keep planting more tea and the market keeps growing on us," he said.

"And so I can never actually keep up with supply."

He said he had a distributor from the very start of his journey and that helped with sales, as did starting out very small and growing with the market.

Looking to the future

Although marketing of the product has been tough for the Kemps, they are determined to push through until sales start to show.

Ms Kemp said they had put a decade of work into the crop and "farmers are determined make a success of whatever they grow".

She said they were now looking into selling to hotels, as well as creating skin care products from the tea leaves.