Malaysia: A Tea at BOH and a night at the Concorde

The BOH Tea Plantaion at Cameron Highlands It’s only fitting we visit one of the biggest tea producing companies when we were in Cameron Hig...

The BOH Tea Plantaion at Cameron Highlands

It’s only fitting we visit one of the biggest tea producing companies when we were in Cameron Highlands. After our visit to the Rose Center, we headed to one of the large tea gardens from BOH Tea Company, the first tea company that set up a highland tea garden in Malaysia in 1929. We were supposed to visit this garden near Rose Center but it was closed so we had to drive a little longer south to where their BOH Tea Factory is located.

The steps to climb the viewpoint hill

“I’m gonna torture you guys first before we eat” Marie told us with an evil grin on her face while we were looking at the steps heading up hill where she said we could see a nice 360 degree view of the Tea Garden. We just climbed the Rose Center and she’s letting us climb again. Haha. But seriously she’s just joking. Nina just decided she’ll have Tea with Marie so Martin and I climbed the steps up the hill near the BOH Tea Factory.

The BOH Tea Factory seen below

It wasn’t really that high a climb. Up on the hill is a communications tower. I could see why Marie wanted us to climb the hill. We could see patterns on all the mountain slopes as far as the eye can see. I can just imagine how big the Tea Garden is.

Regular tours at the BOH Tea Factory

We got down just in time for the regular tour of the Factory. See how they process their teas from harvest to package-ready goods. I never really did understand what our guide was saying from the hard English and the factory noise. But I did get the picture seeing how they are sorted out through machine, filtered then on the final stages looked-in by people if there are a few unfiltered items that got through the machine filtering process.

A worker at BOH Tea Factory keeping close watch

Before we headed out of BOH Tea Factory and Cameron Highlands we decided to have a few snacks at their cafe in preparation for the long drive back to Kuala Lumpur. We tried the English Scones which were highly recommended, I found out why. Served warm, it was really delicious compared to the brick of a scone I had at Equatorial that morning. I spread over the butter and enjoyed its scent steamed off from the pastry. I also had a Teh Tarik ( a pulled tea for mixture of black tea and milk) to go with it and it was a splendid pair.

An English Scone at BOH Cafe

While I would have wished to linger longer sipping tea up there on the highlands, we just have to go. We bought a few BOH Tea products to take home with us then drove back to the City. Making a brief stop for a late lunch, we reached our hotel, Concorde KLIA Hotel, late in the afternoon. Concorde is more like a resort type hotel, ideally for passengers in transit. It has a basic design but has complete amenities especially the much missed internet access to catch up on lost internet hours at the highlands.

My room at Concorde KLIA Hotel

We spent our last night at the Concorde. Nothing much to say but the food was good and we had our well deserved rest there before we headed back to the airport and flew out to Manila. It was a great 11 days stay in Malaysia as I found there were a lot more to discover. This Megafam tour courtesy of Tourism Malaysia made me appreciate Malaysia more, not just it’s uniqueness but similarity as well to my country Philippines. With this I end the chronicles and will sum them up on the next Malaysia post.

Tourism Malaysia is current holding a contest where you could win tickets to Malaysia every week and an ASEAN Pass as the grand prize. Check out the details at the Tara na sa Malaysia Facebook Page.