Sri Lanka – 2011 – What's Up?

You know you are in Sri Lanka when the local convenience store is a guy on the roadside selling you a fresh coconut …

Bananas and coconuts

… and they don’t try to put it in a plastic bag…

Lop off the top and try not to spill too much down your chin

… Banana grow on trees, not on grocery store shelves …

Is it my imagination, or are they growing upside down?

… And the poinsettias are growing wild on the side of the road.

Who knew a poinsettia is a tree?

Another sure sign is the widespread availability of betel nut wrapped in vine leaves.

Who needs a pub when you’ve got betel nut?

Sri Lanka is full of spectacular views. You can see lush valleys descending to the southern plains.

And hilltop villages straddling mountain passes

The near perfect climate allows flora of all sizes and shapes to flourish…

Giant Hibiscus

Giant Palms

And giant trees of all kinds

Most mornings we had a healthy breakfast while peering out across the sky…

Breakfast in Ela at the Ambiente

… followed by some touring around. Some of the more amazing things that we encountered along the way here and there as we peeked out of our tuk-tuk…

Annette peeking

… included a flower so bright it appears to actually glow in the morning dew…

Glowing in morning dew

… and a rather frightening view of heaven perched above a roadside temple…

Madonna, is that you?

One day we visited a tea factory. The Hill country of Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, is one of the most productive tea-growing areas in the world. The countryside is full of plantations, which mark their various fields with these information signs.

50,000 tea plants! Did you know that all tea (including green tea) comes from only one plant species (this does not include herbal tea, which one could argue is not tea at all.

People like this woman …

She saw us coming and ran out to meet us

Pick tea in fields like this…

Tea fields

Which ends up in the tea factories to be dried to 30% moisture…

As far as the eye can see (almost)

Once it is dried, crushed, grated, and graded, it is fermented in small piles for 3-4 hours.

Grading begins here

It is eventually sorted by the degree to which the leaves have been crushed, ranging from silver tips and orange pekoe, to Pekoe, broken pekoe,? dust and a few grades in between.