This weekend was the Wesak Day long weekend so we took our houseguest (and a fellow writer) up to Cameron Highlands.
Photo 1: Hrugaar and me strolling through the Boh tea plantation.
Photo 2: Note how steep the hillslopes are.
Photo 3: these two men are picking the leaves at the top of the bushes
Photo 4: Close up of the machine they use, which has to be hauled manually up and down those rows – and up and down those hills.
Photo 5: Gradually the bag at the back of the machine fills with leaves.
Photo 6: The machine can’t cut the ends of the rows, so this has to be done by hand clippers. The leaves fall into a sort of catch-box on the clippers and are then emptied over the shoulder into the pack on the back.
Truly, a lot of tough manual labour goes into your cup of tea…
I feel I should start drinking tea to justify the labour which goes into picking it. People are always surprised that as an Englishwoman I don’t drink it very often (a cup a year maybe) but in fact I find North Americans drink more tea than the British do.
Oh good, now I don’t have to blog this … I can just put a link to this post instead, heh.
(and it depends where you go in Britain, Jo …)