Drinking Tea in the Cameron Highlands

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Half of the people in Cameron Highlands are of Chinese descent, around 30% Indian, and the rest Malay. The Cameron Highlands is an old British hill station and (according to an informative Indian shopkeeper in town where I bought a ton of tea) since the British already knew how to efficiently utilize the Indian caste system in India they decided to bring them here and plug them into the tea industry. Indians were given specific jobs according to their caste and paid based on the daily amount they produced so there was incentive for work. The British brought over Sri Lankans, who were more highly-educated than the Indians, to supervise. But the Indians kept needing to go back to India and the British couldn't understand why. Since Indians were only here as workers, none of their priests and other religious people were here so they could not do any of the Hindu rituals that were so important. So the British brought all of the important people that they need in daily life and relocated them to the Cameron Highlands.
The tea industry is much more mechanized today so the quality has gone down since leaves are rarely hand selected but they can still sell all that they produce.

Last night I had trouble sleeping even though I had hiked through the jungley forested hills during the day. The 3 cups of caffeinated tea (with milk and sugar-yum) were definitely the culprit. With breakfast I had tea, of course. Then, after a hike that was cut shorter when we were stuck suddenly in a downpour and had to hitch in the back of a canopy truck that smelled like fish, I had my 2nd cup waiting nearly an hour for the bus back to town. My final cup of tea was with an old Chinese man who sold tickets at the bus station and invited me to a nearby shop while I contemplated whether or not to take the more expensive but also more scenic Jungle Train or the bus. At that point I was so wired on caffeine and sugar-2 things I rarely have-that the Austrian girl I went hiking with was shocked to see I had so much energy as she was ready for a nap.

This morning I did a countryside half-day tour to 6 or 7 places in 4 hours run by our obsessive compulsive guide Mr. Sing-who was really knowledgeable and I highly recommend. The tour was from Father's Guesthouse. He's 2nd generation Indian. Mr. Sing was on a very tight schedule and he would become quickly panicked if someone was 5 minutes late or things weren't going exactly as planned. He's done this same tour for 17 years (must have started early since he looked late 30s) and when I asked if most tourists were usually on time after every stop he said about 50/50. It was an entertaining combination-an OCD tour guide in a developing country and a British guy in our group dressed up in his chicken suit. An old Chinese woman shoved aside a girl in our group so she could sneak up and pull on his tail and run away. The kids loved it and he is in many photos, including some of my own.

The most memorable of the stops was to the Boh Tea Plantation, which is the largest plantation in the Cameron Highlands. We were able to see the whole process of making the tea from the leaves-lots of machines grinding, separating, pressing the water out, fermenting-something like that. Fully fermented tea is black tea, partially fermented is the Chinese Oolong tea and green tea is not fermented. The stronger the aroma the better the tea leaves. After seeing the process, we bought a pot of "Premium" tea (or was it Supreme?) and sipped it was we looked out over the green carpeted hills of the plantation. Really nice.

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Photos

Cameron Highlands
Boh Tea Plantation

Cameron Highlands
Ahh!