Saturday December 13, 2008
By Louisa Lim
Mention ‘tea’ and images of prettily dressed ladies sitting around a plate of dainty sandwiches spring to mind. But one company shows how tea is as manly as it gets.
It’s only 2pm but the sun is struggling to shine in Cameron Highlands. Shrouded in swirling fog, everything looks the same as it did several years ago, and yet it is different enough to make Jim Thompson turn in his unmarked grave.
For one, the highlands have been taken over by flies, which are having a good time hovering tirelessly over humans and food. Heaps of rubbish lay carelessly around, from the hills to the rivers to the roads.
The old, mould-encrusted buildings, meanwhile, look even older, but lack the rustic charm of age.
Nevertheless, there is still something special in that faux-English atmosphere which makes Cameron Highlands a favourite hideaway among city dwellers. They are, after all, willing to risk the stomach-churning ascent time and again in a bid to do nothing more than laze around over a cup of tea and scones.
The view from Boh Tea Centre’s 20-foot balcony is nothing short of spectacular.
No other beverage has lodged itself so deeply in our psyche that the mere mention of the word conjures up images of lush, rolling hills. And thanks to the Russell family’s award-winning Boh Tea Centre in Sungai Palas — a contemporary glass-and-concrete structure rising mightily and proudly from the middle of the Boh plantation — interest in tea is now being revived in Malaysia.
Dawn of a tea-riffic era
For a drink that has a long, turbulent history filled with intrigue, smugglers, war and social change, tea remains remarkably simple and comforting. All the world’s tea is derived from a humble leaf plucked from a single, sturdy evergreen bush called Camellia sinensis.
No one really knows exactly when or how it started but sipping tea from a teacup is not as English as some would like to believe. Tea-brewing originates with the people of Yunnan, China.
One of the more popular stories goes like this: 5,000 years ago, there lived an emperor. One fine day, a gust of wind blew some leaves into his kettle, giving it a delightful scent and flavour. From then onwards, he drank a cup of tea every day. His subjects followed suit because they were intent on pleasing him.
The drink then evolved with each successive dynasty, becoming a daily staple among emperors and commoners alike. Subsequently, its popularity began to spread: first to Japan, and then farther afield.
Darrel Samaraweera explaining the process of tea tasting.
Here in Malaysia, a new tea culture beyond Chinese tea and teh tarik, is beginning to take hold with the opening of the Boh Tea Centre two years ago.
The centre has become so popular with the tourists that it now stands as a symbol of salvation both for tea and Cameron Highlands. Not only that, it epitomises the Russell family’s hard-won success in rebooting tea’s colonialist image.
Boh now makes up a whopping 95% of the tea industry in Malaysia.
The real clincher, however, is in the fact that the tea it promotes is so varied in flavour and so monumental in volume that each and every Malaysian could get their Oomph!-fix twice over.
The human tea processor
Standing in the middle of a bare room at the centre was in-house tea expert, Darrel Samaraweera, who is making thunderous slurping noises over tiny cups of tea. Expression taut and eyes wincing, he demonstrates this odd method of tea-tasting to dozens of raised eyebrows.
“I have done this up to 1,000 times a day, six days a week, for the past 14 years,” the 33-year-old says, a tad breathlessly, in between.
“My personal record, however, is about 2,000 cups. This process of sucking everything in as fast as you can could give you a bad headache at the end of the day, but it’s an essential part to tea-tasting.”
The darker tea is nicer for teh tarik.
The secret, Samaraweera explains, is to get in as much oxygen as possible to enhance the taste. Otherwise, he won’t be able to detect the important elements that make an excellent cuppa, like flavour, tanginess and aroma, all of which is influenced by the soil from which it originates, as well as the manufacturing method.
Samaraweera’s mission is to accomplish what technology cannot.
“You can’t trust machinery sometimes, or the weather. Sometimes, we get tea that tastes all funny, with lingering hints of oil and smoke. My job is to decide which tea will make the cut and which won’t.”
Downing infinite amounts of tea may sound like a dream come true for a tea enthusiast, but Samaraweera doesn’t drink the tea; he merely tastes and then spits it out into a bowl nearby, repeatedly, pausing only occasionally to catch his breath or clear his palate with a glass of water.
It took him about three years to master both the practical and theoretical basis of tea tasting at a school in Sri Lanka, one of the biggest tea-producing countries in the world. And in order to become a highly respected professional in this field, he had to sample from as many cups as he could every day.
His job requires him to have a nose for quality tea.
“Because of the physical challenges involved, the field of tea tasting is very much male-dominated,” says Samaraweera.
“Passion for tea plays a fundamental role as well. I’ve seen grown men whine like babies because they’re bored with their job. They don’t last very long.”
On the plus side, Samaweera’s work has taken him to the most colourful places, from Indonesia to Africa. It has also led him to some of the greatest (and sometimes, frightening) adventures.
“I’ve run into wild cats and snakes in certain plantations as well as stayed at haunted tea-estate bungalows,” he says.
Nonetheless, Cameron Highlands still tops his list of favourite places in the world, because “as opposed to tea plantations worldwide, it may be smaller in terms of area, but it’s right up there with the very best in terms of scenic beauty.”
Samaraweera then leans over and speaks: “Here’s a tip. Malaysians still like their tea with milk and sugar. If you’re one of them, go for darker, lowland teas, because it tastes better with the added extras. The higher grown it is, the lighter the tea will be.”
As he takes his last sip, a journalist asks what his plans are for the evening. Is he even able to withstand the sight of tea once he gets home?
“Why yes,” Samaraweera replies without a moment’s hesitation. “Hardly anything beats a nice, hot cup of Darjeeling or Boh Cameronian at the end of the day.” -- The Star Lifestyle.
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