We’ve had some quality globetrotting adventures together in recent years, Mommy and I: from wild orangutan encounters in Borneo to visiting the Lipizzaner stallions in Vienna; from stroopwafels and smoked cheese in Volendam to banh mi and bun cha in Da Nang; walking the equally evocative streets of Gion and New York.
Today we are onboard the iconic sky blue train as it puffs stoically up the highlands, en route to discover the Ceylon Tea so beloved of my mother’s childhood.
Malachite forests roll serenely past, gradually making way for the sweeping tea-bush laden hills of the fabled gardens rising out of the grey mist. It truly is one of the world’s great train journeys.
The romantic journey comes to a screeching halt at the cramped, chaotic Nanu Oya station. There is a footbridge, and then stairs — no lifts, of course — and I surprise myself by carrying both our luggage all that way (gym days work!). Outside it’s unclear where the curb ends and the road begins, and there is definitely no queue or the inclination to form one in the pelting rain. It’s not our favourite arrival experience.
The Tea Planter Life
But the chauffeur awaits, and after a long, steep drive we are pulling up to the gates of what was once the Hethersett Tea Estate. In its heyday the plantation had produced half a million kilograms of Ceylon tea each year.The green and white factory is now a gracefully proportioned hotel, complete with an imposing bellman in colonial-era khakis outside.
We are welcomed in with a handful of sugar and cardamom, and a pot of the estate’s own house blended spice tea, accompanied by a little recipe card. A bright red antique Otis lift takes us past pleasingly geometric lines of pine green and gold. Withering lofts used for drying tea leaves occupy all four floors, now converted into delightfully old-fashioned guest rooms.
They have retained the large windows that let in plenty of natural light, and the original wood color, and have livened things up with white-patterned carpeting, deep burgundy chairs and a brightly patterned red and green bed runner, framed prints on the wall, and no shortage of fine tea. Our housekeeper has left us a petal-strewn towel elephant.
A pristine tub looks invitingly over the valley, and somewhere on the grounds is an absolute treasure of a not-so-secret garden, with large velvety roses, charming topiary, and beautiful mosaics created out of broken crockery by the head gardener.
The factory’s structure has been maintained, and the guest floors look down onto a National Generator. One of two that powered the factory, the venerable giant is turned on for half an hour every evening, filling the building with the evocative rumble of long ago.
Mealtimes are sociable affairs in the spacious Kenmare dining hall, with bold red and green striped placemats that echo the bed runners, heavy polished silverware, deep green trimmed china, and the lion flag on every table. There are themed buffet nights and generous breakfasts on crisp mornings – daytime temperatures hovered at 14 degrees Celsius throughout our stay – and we linger over coconut sambol and green chili chutney and endless pots of light, bright, golden-hued tea. Mom gets a freshly made dosa piled like a mountain.
The team are wonderful, and I deploy my extremely limited Sinhala with great success, replying Hondai! (Good) to How are you? and following that up with Badagini (I’m hungry) and Harima rasai (This is delicious).
It is, all in all, quite lovely, though I am self-conscious that this is a privileged peek into what used to be the life of a tea planter, not a tea plucker.
Far Too Good For Ordinary People
The next day we find ourselves in front of a selection of patterned sarees. Much like that time in Bangkok, my mother picks pink and I pick blue. After we balance the traditional cone-shaped wicker baskets on our back and make sure the woven headbands fit snugly, we head out to cosplay at plucking tea. It is a quiet, chilly morning, with a gaggle of costumed guests deep in concentration on the hillside. I overthink how to flick the wrist just so to pluck those two leaves and a bud; and worry about leeches and snakes; and end up disappointing our genial overseer by the sparse quantity in my basket.
Then we pay a visit to the estate’s very own mini tea factory, fully operational with restored machinery. The original planter’s residence (he had the rather quaint name of Flowerdew), it is a low, green-roofed building with brick walls, next to a well-trimmed maze and gazebo, and a vaguely alarming sign that says, Beware: you may encounter the wild buffalo or the boar after 8 pm . Within the sun-washed interiors, we are carefully guided through the alchemy of orthodox tea production, from withering the leaves, to rolling, fermenting and drying.
Our day concludes with a tea tasting conducted by the Chief Tea Taster, Jayanthi. There is a trolley artfully constructed to look like the tin-lined, hand-stenciled wooden tea crates of old, set up in front of the coppery Goatfell Bar. There is green-bordered china, and a selection of high grown, garden-fresh tea labeled black, pekoe, BOP and BOPF. Jayanthi walks us through the myriad letters (now we know what FTGFOP means), and we do our best to follow instructions, slurping with as much gusto and noise as possible to ensure an even taste profile, and then making good use of the spittoon.
New Year in Little England
We are invited to the hotel’s celebration of the Sinhalese and Hindu New Year; already it is my third New Year in the first half of 2022 and I start to wonder how many cosmic resets I need.
It’s another cold hilltop morning, but the sun shines down as hotel team gathers round a bronze rooster atop a garlanded stand. Milk is boiled in an earthen pot and bubbles over properly at the auspicious time, prosperity and blessings for all are declared, and a cheer goes up from the assembled guests. Mom gets to beat a drum on a woven mat for happiness, and gleefully participates in traditional games like walking on husks and a sack race. There is also have a rather fun-looking setup for a one-handed pillow fight on a pole, but we stay clear of that one.
We don’t visit the waterfalls or Horton Plains after the festivities. Instead, we visit an organic coffee and cocoa farm nearby and are warmly entertained by the erudite hosts. We are treated to spiced chocolate in a lush flowering garden, chew on carrots and stevia that had lain in the earth moments before, smell mint and verbena and marjoram from nature’s own dispensary (and I pick up a leech for my trouble). The century-old house is the setting for a true farm to table lunch; the table is covered with a cheery blue and white check, there is flower salad and pesto and the best vegetarian pizza.
Soon our tea-garden stay draws to a close, and we are sent off, charmingly, with packets of the tea we plucked, and a wave from our khaki-clad bellman.
The long drive back to Colombo takes us through town, with its colonial atmosphere, its smart red post office and its racecourse and its striking bungalows, and little pleasure boats bobbing on mossy green Lake Gregory.
And so here we are, just Mom and me, coming to the tail-end of our Sri Lankan escape, approaching the dusty highways of the capital behind a tuk-tuk that offers up this unexpected gem of wisdom: You only lose what you cling to.
I tuck these brand-new memories away safely, along with all the rest of our adventures, where they will stay as vibrant and fresh as the days they were created, long when all else has faded.
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