Cameron Highlands

On Wednesday morning I was up early for the long drive to Cameron Highlands. The Highlands are north and slightly east of Kuala Lumpur and were named for the surveyor who first explored them. One of the oldest industries in the Highlands is the tea estates. I first visited the Boh Estate, which was established by John Archibald Russell in April 1929 and is still owned and operated by the Russell family. Boh is a well established brand in Malaysia and has at least a 50% market share in the domestic market. I got the same tour that any tourist would get at this location. Next I went to another Boh Tea facility, the Sungai Palas Tea Center and met the Estate Manager. We had a long discussion over lunch about tea production and processing and after lunch he gave me a personal tour of the tea factory. Tea plants are rooted in a nursery and transplanted to the field when they are 12 months old and about 42 cm tall. After transplanting it is about two and a half years before the first plucking. They are plucked every 25-30 days and pruned every 3 years. Tea plants can have an unlimited life span if properly cared for, some of the plants on this estate were planted by the original Dutch owner in the 1930’s and are still in good shape today. They do use mechanical harvesters now but the rows on this estate are planted on the contour and aren’t nearly as straight as the ones I saw in Japan, which makes using the harvesters more difficult. This estate produces black tea and the one I saw in Japan produced green tea. The only difference is how the tea leaves are processed. Like in the U.S. one of the biggest challenges is getting enough labor to run the estate. Even with the mechanical harvesters, 180 people are still needed to keep the place running. Most of their labor force is from Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Below is a picture of part of the estate from their new visitors’ center which sits on a hill with a panoramic view of tea plants as far as you can see. The second picture is the finished premium product straight from the factory.

After my visits to the tea estates I had some free time to explore the Highlands. This is a very agricultural area with many farms producing vegetables, cut flowers, live plants and it is most famous for producing strawberries. The first picture below is of one of the many beautiful flowers that I enjoyed seeing during my visit. The second picture is of some of the many small shops that sell the local produce to locals and visiting tourists from all over Malaysia and Singapore who come to Cameron Highland because the 5,000 foot elevation offers some relief from the heat. Everywhere you look in the Highlands there are farms many in plastic covered greenhouses and others terraced up the sides of the mountains. The third picture is of the hydroponic production in one of the famous strawberry farms. I also visited another butterfly farm and a honey bee farm. The last picture is of one of the butterflies that actually sat still long enough for me to get a picture of it.