'BOH' Knows

[Saturday Oct 13th]
On to the Cameron Highlands we go. Why go there, whats the draw? Its famous for its Tea Plantations and beautiful scenery. Its up in the mountains, and they've been growing Tea here for quite a long time. People also like visiting here because its is much cooler than the rest of Malaysia (Funny how even though hot air rises, high altitudes are cooler...).

Its quite a drive, a great drive. It mountainous, with curves and bends. The best kind of lazy, just out for a drive, sort of drive. We didn't really have an agenda, just go and see the country side and tour a tea factory. Take a rest from the heat.

We pulled into the 'BOH' Tea Factory. Wow, what an amazing place that is. You drive in on this basically single lane road. Long, steep, and winding. All around you are 'fields' of Tea plants. The pattern on the mountainside is amazing. Pseudo-random growth, like a mosaic. Still orderly and 'row' like too. It looks like groomed chaos.

Before stopping here I never knew what tea 'trees' looked like before. They're pruned and trimmed all the time. It stunts their growth to more like a bush than a tree. It also makes them form a 'bend' of leaves for harvesting. They grow them up the wildest of slopes and need to go and pluck them all. Just imagine the work involved, still quite labor intensive! If they do it right they can have a single plant produce for up to 150 years.

After harvesting they get all the leaves and they head to the on site factory. On our tour we got to see the process. First is the drying, like baking the leaves. Then comes the rolling of the leaves for 45+ minutes. It softens the leaves and releases the juices. After that they let the leaves ferment, its on the order of an hour. Finally they sort the leaves from the twigs. Then, off to the flavoring station. Each of their factories ships its locally processed leaves to a central station for flavoring, such as peppermint, etc.

Pretty neat, I haven't been the biggest fan of Tea in my life but I'm coming around... Maybe, just maybe it'll take hold. Until then I'll remember the gorgeous vistas and the fun drive! Though the drive out that single lane road, ouch. Try to fit 20 cars going up and 20 cars going down, meeting on a single lane road climbing a mountain side. It got a bit hairy ;)