Today started off with a tour of a tea factory. We learnt:
* ladies puck tea by hand and can pick between 25-30kg each per day!
* leaves are air compressor dried for 20hrs, handing turning them in batches of 1.5 tonnes, every 6hrs to reduce the tea leaf moisture by 50%
* tea is then rolled, squished, and rolled again, then finally chopped
* its then sun dried for 2.5hrs to turn black
* then its sifted to removed as many small stalks as possible
* then its sorted again, and again, to get rid of more stalks, until finally you're left with largish loose-leaf tea
* the dust that is left behind is inferior and sold to tea companies like Dilmah and Lipton who put it into tea bags!
Of course I bought a little bit of tea to take home :)
After that Sarah and i explored the hot, congested city. Where we were hassled to buy all sort of things, but luckily resisted. Faced with an entire free afternoon we thought it bust to take a tuk tuk to the royal botanical gardens and hang out there this afternoon. It was beautiful and peaceful and the orchid garden was a clear favourite.
Later today we met back with the group to see some traditional dancing, which included fire walking. It was ok.. But I wrote this post while there.. So not that fantastic... according to me.
After that we went to... Another temple! We are all adoring wearing our temple clothes in this heat! The temple was great. It has the left tooth of someone famous in it. We were all herded in to the temple to see this holy relic, only to be moved along after standing in front of it for less than two seconds! I kid you not, I hardly broke my walk while going past it. It turns out its housed in a golden shaped egg, but I have no idea what that egg looks like as I only caught a glimpse. We have all had to google it, or buy a postcard. Absolutely hilarious!
Tomorrow is a 7 hr train trip, followed by a cooking demonstration.
Until then.
A x
* ladies puck tea by hand and can pick between 25-30kg each per day!
* leaves are air compressor dried for 20hrs, handing turning them in batches of 1.5 tonnes, every 6hrs to reduce the tea leaf moisture by 50%
* tea is then rolled, squished, and rolled again, then finally chopped
* its then sun dried for 2.5hrs to turn black
* then its sifted to removed as many small stalks as possible
* then its sorted again, and again, to get rid of more stalks, until finally you're left with largish loose-leaf tea
* the dust that is left behind is inferior and sold to tea companies like Dilmah and Lipton who put it into tea bags!
Of course I bought a little bit of tea to take home :)
After that Sarah and i explored the hot, congested city. Where we were hassled to buy all sort of things, but luckily resisted. Faced with an entire free afternoon we thought it bust to take a tuk tuk to the royal botanical gardens and hang out there this afternoon. It was beautiful and peaceful and the orchid garden was a clear favourite.
Later today we met back with the group to see some traditional dancing, which included fire walking. It was ok.. But I wrote this post while there.. So not that fantastic... according to me.
After that we went to... Another temple! We are all adoring wearing our temple clothes in this heat! The temple was great. It has the left tooth of someone famous in it. We were all herded in to the temple to see this holy relic, only to be moved along after standing in front of it for less than two seconds! I kid you not, I hardly broke my walk while going past it. It turns out its housed in a golden shaped egg, but I have no idea what that egg looks like as I only caught a glimpse. We have all had to google it, or buy a postcard. Absolutely hilarious!
Tomorrow is a 7 hr train trip, followed by a cooking demonstration.
Until then.
A x
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