I don’t get out much when I’m working. The weekends are usually spent marking – the bane of my profession, I am afraid. So it was nice to actually get away this weekend to the Cameron Highlands. We took a new friend, Glynnis from Australia with us as well.

This is one of the foremeost tea growing areas in South-East Asia, and the tea from this region is unlike any other. It is a full-bodied, black tea, but there is very little tannin in the brew, and as a consequence it is remarkably mild. You can drink a couple of pots of this stuff – as we did on a couple of occassions this weekend – and there is no after taste, no burn, no dryness on the tongue at all. It is an exceptional tea.

And we had the great fun of drinking it in exceptional circumstances, on a platform suspended 100 feet over the tea itself, looking at the slopes beyond in their neat terraced rows. The Highlands are famous for their vegetables as well, and it was strawberry season, so we bought some of those as well. The air was crisp and mild, in the best Canadian tradition, and the views were gorgeous. We picked out a couple of nice guest house spots for our return visit, because this site is worth going back to.