Palm trees giving shade to tea plants

Here, in the south of Sri Lanka, in the “low grown teas” region, the sun is very intense, and it is best to protect the tea plants from its rays for at least a few hours a day.

Curiously, palm trees are used here to provide shade, despite being a rarity. As the palm trees themselves are cultivated, this enables the farmer who owns this lovely lakeside plot to harvest two different products on the same land, and both plants benefit.

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Tea tasting with Dilan and Vidusha

Last week, in the company of Dilan Wijeyesekera and Vidusha Wakista, I tasted teas from the regions of Dimbula, Uva and Nuwara Eliya, side by side.

Dilan and Vidusha work for the company Mabroc and supply some of our teas from Sri Lanka, which come either from their own plantations or the Colombo auctions.

We also discussed “low growns”, teas from the south of the country that grow at a low altitude, and which have steadily improved in quality over the years. Most low tea plantations don’t use the rotorvane, a machine widely used on high grown plantations, which handles the leaves more roughly than the orthodox procedure.

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In Colombo, weekly tea auctions are held

I am writing this in Colombo, in the room where the weekly tea auctions are held. In fact there are many auction rooms like the one I’m sitting in now, where different grades are sold.

The three people you see on the platform are brokers. In the days preceding the auction they will have received hundreds of samples from the tea plantations. They print a catalogue listing all the lots of tea available, which they send to the exporters, and today they are selling the teas.
The men sitting in this room – strangely there are no women – are exporters. They are officially recognised as such, and are almost the only people with the right to export tea from Sri Lanka.

What amuses me about this photo is that everyone seems so calm, whereas in reality the place is buzzing with activity. The man in the centre of the platform is announcing the lots to be sold and is speaking at an incredible rate. A few seconds later he brings the hammer down and moves on to the next sale. He spots a man raising an eyebrow, which means he is bidding higher, or another lifting a finger, and when nobody else moves, it means the deal is done.

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Toy Train taking a break for the delight of tourists

The little Darjeeling train sometimes takes a break. Near Ghoom, at the Batasia loop, there is a special stop which the tourists enjoy.

It is a spectacular configuration, where the track turns back on itself, climbing at the same time, before the train crosses a bridge right above the track it was on just a few minutes earlier.

In this photo the train has just completed the loop and is passing in front of some pretty and very neatly trimmed trees, a sign of the locals’ pride in their Toy Train.

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