Temi Tea Gardens and around

Tea picking: view from my balcony

17^th-18^th April

My room on the first floor at the Cherry resort in Temi Tea Gardens has large windows and a balcony and overlooks the Kangchenjunga range.  The other side of the building overlooks the ranges that border Sikkim on the east.   At the end of the corridor is a huge viewing area / rooftop café (aka open deck with plastic chairs and tables).

Tea Pickers

On my first morning I opened my curtains and could actually could see the high peaks – albeit though mist/pollution.  There is something wonderful about laying in bed and admiring these!   My neigbours said that the mountains on the other side had been visible earlier, but were now obscured – I checked that for myself in due course!

Around 7am the tea pickers started work, and their cheerful chatter at the start of their day floated up from below, as did the sounds of the village and the children.  The closer view from my window and balcony is tea gardens in all directions, finishing in front of me at the village with its small houses and the school – painted bright green. 

The Cherry Resort from higher up the hill

The pickers have the traditional baskets, supported on their backs by woven headbands.  They have “aprons” of some waterproof stuff that can be tied on when the bushes are damp and they carry either large umbrellas or a shelter made of bamboo strips laced together and covered with more waterproof stuff – to protect both them and the tea from saturation by the heavy afternoon rain.

The first stage of drying

As well as their early morning chatter, they seem very cheerful and friendly, and I received many waves and calls as I went out on the balcony.  I suspect that this place does not receive many foreign visitors – and this was later confirmed by the manager.  The most common question I got when out walking was “where are you from?” (along, of course, with the “are you alone?” – it seems so unlikely to many that I would be!

After struggling with lack of success with internet I decided to go out for a walk and the manager said I could walk up the hill to a café for a cup of tea – and pointed out the path up through the tea gardens.  This took me only to the next bend in the road, and I did induge in a cup of tea, trying to not look too hard at the grubbiness around me.  The table at which I had been sitting had received a perfunctory wipe before I was invited to sit down!

Sifting machine

I paid for my tea and left, asking about a trail further up the hill – I was pointed to the corner with a gesture of going up, so I followed that, giving way to the young men carrying huge loads of cement and sand in baskets fixed int eh same way as the tea pickers’ baskets.  The steep route brought me out to a grassy flattish area with a wooden building looking a bit shed like but evidently a goempa.   A more substantial building proclaimed itself to be the associated hygienic facilities and sported 4 doors, labeled respectively male, female, lama and visitor!

Biosecurity precautions for visitors

The trail diverged and I followed the right hand one, which led around the hill, maintaining a reasonably level altitude.  It was paved with somewhat overgrown bricks, so I thought it might be of some importance.  I encountered a couple of people walking in the opposite direction, who looked quite startled to see me and one asked where I was going.  I replied, I did not know, I was just roaming, so he provided the information that the path led to the watersource.  I thanked him and continued until the path got more overgrown than I was comfortable with, and retraced my steps.  The vegetation was a bit nondescript but it was very peaceful and pleasant to be out and walking

Separating rose petals to flavour the tea

I took the other path, which led steadily uphill, but it again become a bit overgrown, so I turned back.

As I walked back down below the goempa, a group of young ladies cheerfully called out to me and inquired as to my country of origin and activities and suggested I visit the nearby village.  I inquired if they were tea picking, but no, they were carrying sand for construction.  Hard work!

Filling the tea chests

I followed their directions towards the village, but like so many Himalayan villages the path goes through the gardens of people’s houses and there was an elderly man looking at me curiously.  With noone with me and no language with which to communicate, I smiled, salammed him, admired his orchids and then waved goodbye! 

Tea chests awaiting....

I decided to walk down to the tea factory and went looking for the start of the path the manager had pointed me to earlier.  Silly me to have missed in in a pile of rocky rubble – I retraced my steps from the village I’d ended up in, waving again to a small boy who had looked puzzled to see me as I passed him the first time but smiled as if I was a long lost friend as I passed him again.

I wound my way down through the formed path, then rather than go through the middle of the second village took a short cut down the drainage route through the tea garden, it was a bit steeper than was really comfortable and I was glad of my walking poles.  It started to rain as I got down to the bottom and I reached a sheltered area at the end of the factory just before the downpour set in. 

Sorting the tea leaf into different grades

After investigating a couple of entrances, I was pointed to where I could purchase a ticket to be shown around the factory, and was given a pair of disposable shoe covers, a hair cover and face mask.  This place has major ISO organic certification and clearly makes a real effort to maintain biosecurity.  I was impressed.

The young lady who showed me around was selected, I suspect, because she could speak a little English.  I was shown the drying racks where the green leaves are placed for 3 days with air pumped through under them, the rollers for the green tea, the sifters and sorters, more machines that did whatever they did (along with the lady shoveling the tea from the floor where the machine deposited it) and finally the group of women sitting, picking out impurities from flat baskets of what was almost the final product before putting it into tea chests – why should I be surprised at that?

Removing impurities from the finished product

I expressed interest in buying a small packet of tea – which appeared to be incredibly difficult to negotiate, then went to leave and one man asked if I had been given complementary samples.  I replied negatively and there was a confused conversation about samples and all sorts of things.  I suggested I really wanted to leave then as there was a break in the weather, but succumbed to being shown the “samples” which were actually products for sale.  I brought a small packet of green tea – after a complicated discussion about its price and discount and then was able to leave.

Except the skies had opened!  I donned my raincoat and found an umbrella in my backpack and put the cover over my backpack and waited for it to ease a little before making my way back up the hill – having refused the services of a guide to find my way up a concrete set of steps!

After the picking

I got back to the hotel, the bottoms of my trousers saturated, and retired to my room for the remainder of the afternoon for a hot shower and change of clothes – after ordering fried rice (with chilli) for dinner, hoping that it would be better than the previous evening’s pakora and momo (served with tomato ketchup!)  It wasn’t. 

Hazy views of high peaks

Around 7:30pm, I felt exceedingly tired and went downstairs for some boiling waterin my thermos and was told by the manager than he’d recharged the internet and it was working better – did I want the hotspot:  yes please! 

I was able to check email and download and organise payment for my return trip to Bhutan, and one or two other minor tasks before going to sleep – I still have no flight from Bangkok to home though!

more hazy views of high peaks

The next day was fairly overcast with intermittent showers – every time I thought about going for a walk, it started to rain.  I looked at Google maps and thought about walking up the hill to investigage the Temi Biodiversity park, but decided against it and stayed for a lazy relaxing day looking out at the immediate view. 

I arranged with the manager for a car for 9am the next day to take me to Siliguri – the closest point to Bagdogra airport I could book accommodation.  I expect the driver is the manager’s cousin or such.