There's tea in them 'thar hills!

Malaysia recently celebrated their Labor Day, so we took a road trip to the Cameron Highlands over the 3-day weekend. The Highlands is a mountainous area in the center of the Malaya Peninsula where tea has been cultivated for about 80 years. Discovered in the 1880s by the British, the Highlands were a welcome and cool retreat from the heat and humidity of MY's coastal areas. The British tradition is kept alive and tourist-friendly, with most hotels built with Tudor style and serving high tea. (Cucumber sandwiches are actually quite tasty). 

Being tea-holics, we spent a day visiting the Boh Tea Planation south of Tanah Rata, the town where we stayed. But first we had to get there. Up, up, up we drove on a winding mostly single-lane road. I can't imagine that standard-sized American cars would have made it.

The cooler air and lack of humidity in the Cameron Highlands was refreshing as we ate a picnic on a steep hillside covered with tea bushes. After a while, the bushes began to blur into an artfully clipped and  tufted rug of lush green.

The Boh tea factory looks just as old as the plantation itself, and is still in use. Tons of machinery were drying, cutting, sorting, roasting and bagging the tea. Safety warning signs and mechanisms were scant -- common sense was assumed to be in actual use! Happily, no maimings occurred during our visit.

Watching the process was fascinating, but the best part was the aroma of tea. Bright grassy and herbal tea leaf smells greeted us at the entry, while rich, toasted finished tea smells wafted from the exit. Flyaway bits infused my clothing and hair with the heady tea scent, driving me to consume many a cuppa over the next 2 days. Thankfully, we had remembered to bring biscuits.