Hill Country's World Tea Capital ~ A Paradise

Travel to NuwaraEliya and the hill country’s world tea capital

January 16-17 

Our ride to NuwaraEliya is twisting and turning uphill like a roller coaster with quick stops to view beautiful waterfalls, tea hills or to buy some red bananas and pet a monkey. John seems still friendly towards monkeys despite our monkey burglary. I am more suspicious of their motive. 

We stop for a tour at a tea factory but due the Tamil holiday the factory is not working that day.  However in our tour of this 100 year old factory, we learn about the process of  partially drying tea leaves (withering), rolling tea leaves, sieving or grinding to promote fermentation, further drying by firing and grading or sorting tea.  I learn about black, white and green tea and how the finest teas have the strongest tastes while the medium teas have more subtle tastes.  Dust tea (Chai) is the lowest quality and therefore has more milk added. The economy in Sri Lanka is based on tea and in 2008 Sri Lanka became the world’s 2^nd most important tea-producing nation (branded internationally as Ceylon tea).

Learning about Tamil Food from Steve and Marie 

In NuwaraEliya, a hill town that the English used as a center for the tea trade, Steve takes us for a Tamil lunch where we are clearly the only tourists. His ability to speak Tamil makes us feel welcomed by the people and Steve helps us learn about what we are eating. Here we have a delicious buffet lunch of sambar (orange squash), dahl (yellow peas), brinjal, green stuff, jackfruit and vadai (donut), rice and payasam desert (cardamom and tapioca). As all the customers do, we wash our hands at a sink right next to the buffet line and while everyone else in the room eats with their hands, two of us use spoons.  While I ate with my fingers at a prior restaurant, the fact that spoons are provided tempts me to my own tradition.  Afterwards we saunter around NuwaraEliya (population of 25,000) known as ‘Little England’.  While the center of town is definitely Sri Lankan, around the edges we see colonial houses, a golf club and English gardens. We visit the Hill Club, which is a hotel and restaurant reminding us of this area’s colonial past.

Heritance Tea Factory & the Tea Industry

Heritance Tea Factory Hotel 

Arriving at hotel and greeted with spices

Beautiful bedroom overlooking tea fields  

Hotel Entrance

Dining Room 

We arrive at Heritance Tea Factory hotel, which is magnificent. It is 6850 feet above sea level and was formerly an operational factory responsible for producing some of Ceylon’s finest teas. Tea was introduced in Ceylon in 1867 after the plantation industry was in crises due to a blight on the coffee plantations.  Since then tea has sustained the country’s economy. This factory fell into disuse in the 1970’s but was discovered by Aiken Spence in the 90’s and converted to a hotel to honor the tea industry and includes a miniature tea factory. It is a one of a kind hotel with plenty of character including the original windows, metal exterior and is decorated with many of the original tea machinery 

January 17  

Morning Walk to Paradise

Incredible Views ~ feeling mindfulness 

The next morning at 6:30 John and I take a 2-hour bird watching tour with a local guide. We turn out to be the only people who signed up for this tour so we saunter along easily asking questions and learning as much about tea plants and tea pickers as birds.  John is thrilled with his new binoculars and I am ecstatic with the morning lighting on the tea fields. I am taking dozens of pictures of these hills and the terraces in an attempt to capture the different shades of green.  Our guide is excited to show us the Changeable Hawk Eagle sitting on a branch on the watch for a snake breakfast. 


The sound effects of the early morning birds is a wonderful symphony and for while I feel that we are in paradise. 

Tamil Tea Pickers 
Most of the tea laborers on plantations here are Tamil, brought over from Southern India by the British in late 1800’s.  Apparently the British thought that the Tamils were harder workers than the Sinhalese who they thought were lazy. The descendants of these plantation Tamils are different from the Tamils in Northern Sri Lanka and have usually stayed out of ethnic strife. 

Our guide tells us that tea pickers are all women.  On our walk we come across 5 women all looking quite old getting ready to begin tea picking. They are covering their safaris with heavy plastic skirts and are wearing woolen sweaters. 

They are carrying large plastic bags for carrying the tea on their heads. They haven’t started picking yet and already I am very hot from our 90-minute walk. I can’t imagine picking all day in such heavy clothing.  Pickers are contracted to pick 20km of tea per day (45 lbs) and get a bonus for more than that.  My Lonely Planet guide says they get paid $3 a day! (2/3 of minimum wage for government employees) 

Tamil Village 

We walk through the local village where the pickers live and it is evident they are living in poverty in substandard housing with outside latrines and no electricity. A woman is putting her laundry out to dry on her roof. 

Latrine 

This woman wanted her picture taken 

Feeding baby with fingers 

We talk with some children playing and eating sugar cane as well as a girl coming home from school. 

Local Primary School 

Our guide teaches us about tea plants

Tea flowers 

Pruned Tea Plants 

We learn from our guide that tea plants are picked once a week and are pruned every 5 years. After pruning they wait a year before picking again. Pickers take only the top 3- 4 leaves ~ 2 side leaves and the bud.  After 100 years the tea plants are replanted.

Step 1: Withering 
Once the leaves are picked they are demoisturized by blowing air through leaves spread out on mats.  

Withering ~ 50% of moisture removed 

Step 2: Rolling 
Partly dried leaves are then crushed or rolled , starting a fermentation process for the dark teas.  Apparently the art in tea producing is knowing when to stop the tea fermentation. 

Rolling 

Step 3: Fermentation

Fermentation 

Step 4: Drying (Firing)



Step 5: Sorting 

Marie checks out the tea smell

However, green teas do not go through the same  fermentation process but rather a teaming process.  Largely the machinery and technology has been unchanged since the 19^th century. There are many varieties of tea graded by dust size to leaf size and by quality. They are further categorized by low grown, mid-grown or high-grown. The low grown (under 600 m) grow strongly and are high in body and low in flavor.  The high grown (over 1200m) grow slowly and are renowned for subtle flavor. I am reminded of wine making and the quality of different grapes and the subtlety of the fermentation process for beer and wine. 

Magical 

Our walk is truly magical… with all our auditory and visual senses activated. The air is crisp and clean, bird sounds constant and the beauty of the hills covered with tea plants is astounding.  As we walk the Hindu temple projects its music loudly from speakers 6:30 to 7:30.  I think that maybe I could live in one of these shacks but definitely would need more than powdered nescafe, and a coffee process that would require good beans and perhaps electricity.

Learning to be a tea picker with supportive coaches 

Later in the afternoon I try tea picking with the women I had seen in the early morning walk.  I find it difficult to bend over wearing a sari and trip as I get the sari fabric caught under my feet.  The basket strap frequently falls off my head and I tip over the tea leaf basket.  The women laugh at my ineptness and coach me patiently in how to pick the tea leaves more carefully getting only the top three leaves. The speed at which they pick tea leaves astounds me and I can’t imagine attaining this level of skill and doing this 8 hours a day.

I work hard 

I'm looking for praise but my speed is slow - heard that before! 

While I would like to live here I am not sure my coach thinks this is my next career. 

Tamil Town

At 5 pm, in order to get in our last bit of Tamil culture before leaving this magical place, we take tuck tucks into a somewhat larger town. There we find a market going on and have fun meeting the local vendors. Once again Steve's knowledge of Tamil helps us to engage in some interactions. 

One man offers Marie a fried food as a gift. The people seem very generous and no one tries to sell us things.They are of course intrigued by the tall white man who speaks Tamil.

We are looked at with curiosity

Add caption

Men's Group