Visit to Tea Plantation and Factory

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Loading the                         Loading the leaves into lorries to be transported to the factories

The journey to the tea plantation seemed to take forever. The plantation, located on a highland, was elevated about 1000 m above the sea level where the temperature was much cooler than that in the city. The need for well-drained soils explains why tea is grown in the highlands where natural drainage is good. Just like what we had been taught in school, tea is cultivated from the leaf cuttings of carefully selected tea plants grown in the nursery. We were told that the tea plants grow better when protected from the sunlight and winds and for this reason, they are planted close together to form a canopy. The processing of tea leaves is done in a small factory located nearby. For a start the tea leaves are dried so as to reduce the moisture content in the leaves. The dried tea leaves are then feed into a machine known as the ‘roller’ so as to break them into smaller pieces. They are then fermented to develop its flavour and colour and then dried again to reduce moisture content and stop fermentation. They are then sorted out and tested to maintain quality before it is stored for 3 months to enhance its flavour. Having an idean of how tea was made, we then proceeded to the "tea restaurant" as we called it, where we were served a complementary glass of tea. Surprisingly, it tasted quite sweet and pleasant, exactly not what we had expected!

                  Rolling machine                                                             Roasting machine