The Glenloch Tea Factory & Museum

The Glenloch Tea Factory & Museum is sited in Katikitula in the district of Nuwara Eliya. We visited it on our road trip to Kandy from Colombo.

At the factory, we were greeted by Vishaka and she graciously guided us through the several processes fresh tea leaves (picked from the bushes of Camellia sinensis) go through before they are graded and finally packed for us to enjoy our cups of tea.

Did you know that tea, whether black, green, yellow, blue (oolong) or white, all come from the same tea plant? 75% of tea production end up as the popular black tea. English Breakfast Tea is my favourite black tea, with a dash of milk and honey. Slurp! Oops, I mean... sip!

In the factory we saw how the plucked tea leaves are first withered/wilted. This is for the purpose of removing excess water from the leaves. This process promotes the breakdown of leaf proteins into free amino acids and increases the availability of freed caffeine, both of which change the taste of tea.

Then the leaves are rolled, i.e. chopped into tiny pieces or macerated by the machines shown below. This is to promote oxidation. Some of the leaf juices are released that aid in oxidation which (again) change the taste of tea.

The leaves are then left to ferment/oxidise. Oxidation turns the green leaves to a copper colour. Under or over-oxidation produces the type of tea desired. Black teas are 100% oxidised.

After drying with hot air the tea leaves change colour to brown or black, then undergo the final process of sorting by size and grade.

At the end our tour we got to enjoy little cups of white tea. I'm no tea connoisseur so for me its the first I've seen, let alone drink white tea. I had only been familiar with green tea or black tea.

We then visited the Tea Museum in an annex building. There are exhibits on the history of tea in Sri Lanka and machinery previously used in the processing of tea. The pioneers of Ceylon tea, James Taylor and especially Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton made this Indian Ocean island well known to the world at the end of the 19th century. Lipton was also a marketing genius who has made his name synonymous with black tea the world over.

Anyway this particular visit reminds me to revisit our own tea plantations and factories in Cameron Highlands. Because there is so much more to tea than just enjoying a cuppa!

Ref: Victor H. Mair &  Erling Hoh. The True History of Tea. Thames & Hudson, 2009. Ex Libris CNB 2086
12 February 2015