Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Just outside N'Eliya in Kandapola, the
Tea Factory
hotel is, as the name sug-
gests, cleverly converted from an old Brit-
ish-era tea factory. Guests can pick their
own leaves from the bushes of the Hether-
sett Estate and process them at the hotel's
miniature tea factory. Also outside N'Eliya,
follow the Ramboda road to visit the
Oli-
phant Tea Estate,
the region's first,
where Sir Anthony Oliphant planted thirty
Chinese tea plants in the 1830s. Today
owned by Mabroc Teas, it's known for a
particularly fine delicate green tea, rare for
Ceylon. You can also visit the
Pedro Tea
Estate
at Boralanda, 3km (2 miles) from
town, which still uses some old-style
machinery in its processing plant, or the
Labookele Tea Estate
(Kandy Rd.), which
gives free factory tours and has a cafe.
Driving back to Colombo via the Hatton
road, an essential rest stop is the
St. Clair's
Tea Centre
in Talawakalee (150km mile
marker), a century-old planter's cottage
that has been refurbished as a tea room by
the estate's current owners, Maskeliya
Plantations. Here visitors can sample a
wide range of Ceylon teas—traditional
orange pekoes as well as silver tips, golden
tips, and herbal teas. Besides the tea, the
great attraction here is scenic views of two
of Sri Lanka's most dramatic waterfalls, St.
Clair's Falls and Devon Falls, named after
two of the area's big tea planters.
Nuwara Eliya Tourism
(www.
nuwaraeliya.org).
(
Colombo (180km/111 miles).
L
$$$
Grand Hotel,
Grand Hotel Rd,
(
&
94/52/2288105;
www.tangerinehotels.
com/thegrandhotel/index.htm). $$$
The
Tea Factory,
Kandapola (
&
94/52/
2229600; www.aitkenspencehotels.net).
Tour Operator: The Tea House
(
&
630/
961-0877;
www.theteahouse.com).
Tea
447
Luk Yu Tea House
Dim Sum & Bo Lai
Hong Kong, China
Whether you were sealing a business deal
or arbitrating a dispute, in old China you
didn't go to a lawyer's office or a court-
house. All interested parties would meet
together at a teahouse, where affairs
could be amicably settled over a pot of tea
and some dim sum. Unlike the Japanese,
whose tea ceremony is elaborately formal,
the Chinese respected tea-drinking as a
rite of companionship. And in mercantile
Hong Kong, teahouse camaraderie was
treasured for the way it greased the
wheels of commerce.
The classic Hong Kong teahouse is a
dying breed, but you'll still see business-
men negotiating over their teapots at the
Luk Yu Tea House in the bustling Central
District. First opened in 1933, it's a trea-
sured survivor, a vestige of old Hong Kong
named in honor of the Tang Dynasty tea
master who wrote
Cha Ching,
China's 8th-
century treatise on the rituals of tea.
Despite the streamlined elegance of its Art
Deco decor, the restaurant is full of old-
fashioned details—black ceiling fans, spit-
toons, individual wooden booths, marble
tabletops, wood paneling, and stained-
glass murals. Regulars gravitate to the
upper floor dining room, where they can
wheel and deal in relative calm.
The house specialty is classic Canton-
ese dim sum, served 7am to 5:30pm; from
midmorning on, customers order not from
carts but from picture menus (a recent
concession to customer service—the
famously rude waiters have also toned
down their grumpy shtick). It's one of the
best places to try a few Chinese teas,
