Boh Tea Plantaion Cameron Highlands

Admiral Marina, Port Dixon, Malaysia

Hi All,

  It’s a bright and sunny day here in Port Dixon but it must be very stormy in Boston with the Red Sox 7 games out of first place and just having lost 3 games to Baltimore.  It’s far too early to give up hope but it does make it difficult to check the scores each day.  We’re off to Port Dixon town today for food supplies, a shave for Randal, and maybe a new tire for my bike.  As we were cruising along the other day we heard a loud pop.  I knew right off that it was a bike tire and sadly it was.  (Though in the scheme of things you really don’t want anything on a diesel boat going pop!) The wall of my tire had given up the ghost so that put an end to our plans for riding here in Port Dixon.  Maybe in town there will be a bike shop.  But the last time I needed a new tire, the bike shop in Sungei Rengit had to order it from Singapore.  Port Dixon is sort of a resort area so maybe they will have a bike shop though I don’t remember seeing one the last time we were here. 

  Not far from Port Dixon we heard someone calling DoraMac on our VHF.  It was our new friend Amir who had bought our old friend Ben Ben’s 382 Diesel Duck.  Amir lives in Kuala Lumpur with his family but last month had been in George Town on business and had come to visit since he follows our blog.  He also kindly drove Elizabeth and me to the Gurnsey Mall on his way to lunch and then home.   Amir had just left Port Dixon and I’m not sure exactly where he was heading yesterday, but it was quite a fun experience.  I wish our timing had been better and we could have visited with him here in Port Dixon.

  When we arrived here mid-afternoon yesterday three marina workers came to catch our lines and one of them learned that a diesel trawler weighs more than a sail boat.  He didn’t realize how hard he had to pull the line with the wind blowing us away from the dock towards a sailboat on the other side of the slip.  But luckily our old friend Rizal was in charge and soon had things under control.  He said, “Welcome back,” and that was nice to hear.  It is one of the nice parts of returning to a port; like going into “Cheers” and everyone knows your name. 

  I still have photos from the Cameron Highlands to share and then some last stories of George Town. 

Go Sox…PLEASE!

Ru

DoraMac

Cameron Highlands Boh Tea Plantation http://www.boh.com.my/

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The center had a coffee shop, gift shop, an educational/advertising video and a short factory tour.

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The “tea shop” dining area.

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It looks like the hills are covered with kudzu but it’s tea.

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Postcards show people “hand plucking “ tea but that’s just for postcards.

“BOH workers harvest, or ‘pluck’, the tea bushes approximately every 3 weeks when the new shoots grow or ‘flush’.

Tea used to be plucked by hand as the workers move laboriously through the long rows of low tea bushes. Today, innovation and research within the Company has led to a mechanization and upgrading of its operations with the development of several labour and time-saving methods.

In the highland gardens, the most common plucking method used is the two-man hand-held machine which is assisted by winches. These machines can harvest up to 300 kgs of green leaf per man per day, 10 times more than traditional hand plucking.

On the steepest slopes where access is limited, shears are used and can bring in about 120kgs per man per day.

In the evacuation of the plucked leaf from the field, zipwires are used.

In the lowland garden at Bukit Cheeding where the land is flatter and more accessible, BOH uses specially-designed vehicular harvesters which pluck 9000 kgs of green leaf a day!

After the harvest day is over, the leaf is first checked for quality, packed into sacks and weighed before being transported to the factory for processing.” www.boh.com.my

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During the factory tour we saw “tons” of tea being processed.

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Our “tea factory “tour guide answering Randal’s question.

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Bags of tea; the larger the leaf the better and more expensive the tea.

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At the end of the tour Randal had more questions and our guide was quite knowledgeable.

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The blue buildings are workers’ housing we were told.

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The winding road up to the tea plantation took skill and patience.

During our half-day tour we made a partial trip up the mountain to see the tea fields but the factory was closed because it was Monday. When we booked the tour in George Town, no one told us that would be the case or we would have gone on Tuesday. So on Tuesday afternoon after a rather difficult, dirty, and wet hike we cleaned up and took a taxi back to the tea plantation for the tour. The taxi fare was 50 ringgits, almost $16 US. For 40 ringgits we could have rented a Mr. Din Langkawi car for a whole day. It seemed like an outrageous amount of money as taxi fares go until we started driving up the tea plantation road. The taxi fare also included the hour we would be at the plantation and the ride back .

But it was all worth it. The Boh website is actually pretty interesting. I bought some caramel tea concoction and Randal bought a book called Planter’s Tales for our souvenirs.

One last email about our hike and Tanah Rata itself and that should finish things up.