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Glenloch Tea Factory. See my short review of this place on Trip Advisor. |
In-TEA-resting:
Glenloch – Tea Farm/Estate & Factory
Address: Nuwara Eliya Katukithula, Sri Lanka
Phone Number: 094 052 225 9646
www.glentea.com
As I have mentioned on my SL Day 1 blog, this “in-TEA-resting” visit is worth a separate blog. So here it goes!
Among the five (5) sites we visited for our first day (14 Sept 2016) tour is Glenloch Tea Factory. I was happy to learn about something about TEA. I love drinking tea and it helps to actually understand and know about how it is being processed and prepared.
It took us around 1 hour plus to reach this site (from Kandy’s Temple of the Tooth) – – – going up to the hills, the way is like that of Baguio/Osmena Peak in Cebu. You will see a sea of tea plants from different factories or they call it tea estate and a line up of pine trees that make the atmosphere really cold. When we arrived our driver – Amila asked someone to tour us around and there we met a young Tamil lady named Susini. Friendly and informative, she toured us around the factory – explained the process, answered our clarifications and allows us to take videos and photos. (uploading a short clip soon.) We noticed that almost all workers are female, so to our curiosity we asked Susini, at first she gestured a showing off her arms that connotes to a “strong woman” and when we laughed, she explains further that it is because of of the soft touch a woman has when it comes to picking/plucking the tea leaves and doing all other processes . . . and so all we said was – – “ahhhhhh ~~~ okay”.
The process of tea making are : Plucking (picking the right leaves), Withering (drying), Rolling & Crushing (makes it release the enzymes that promotes oxidation), Fermenting (applicable for black teas), Drying/Firing (further drying…), Sorting (separating leaves according to its grades such as BOP, BOPF,Orange Pekoe, Pekoe etc.) and finally Packing – part of the sorting process whether to make it as lose tea or into the tea bags.
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Over-all for me this tour is a must-visit when you happen to be in Ceylon.
A recommended one! At the end of the tour, Susina brought us to their overlooking cafe where they served us a free cup of tea! Indeed as Kokobear +ellejulie0116 quoted on his Facebook “Tea is great at the source!”
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