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We drove up to Nuwara Eliya today which is high in the hill country. It was the windiest road I've ever been on. There was so much to look at. The tea estates were glorious. Incomparable.
We stopped at the Blue Fields Tea Factory (estate?) and had a guided tour. The guide spoke a little quickly and there was the noise of the factory, but I got the gist of things. We started at the top floor, where they dry the tea leaves with fans for a few hours, then send them down a hole in the floor to the floor below. They go into the machine which crushes the leaves and sifters and sorters that grade the degree of crushing. There are huge ovens for further drying, that happens before the grading, though.
There are gold tip and silver tip tea, and it's very expensive, made from the buds of leaves. Around $300 per kilo. The factory felt like something from the turn of the century. The machinery was all old, but that may not be too bad, as I suspect they know how to fix things when they go wrong. It was certainly mechanical rather than technological.
Nuwara Eliya is a colonial remnant town and much of the architecture is British. In April, it's the horse racing season here and everyone comes. Horse racing at this altitude would be interesting I think. An incongrous place to have it, but I suspect it's a remnant from colonial days.
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