continued…Shane is in town! Part 3. Ella, Tea country

Roadside curd. Yogurt made from water buffalo. Served from rough fired ceramic disc’s with sweet amber honey

View from our homestay where we stayed with and were cared for by the nicest family. Our homestay was a 10 minute walk to Ella town with is a short strip of restaurants and stores, fairly ugly and noisy. It’s nice to be a bit removed. Despite the unappealing Ella mainstreet, the surrounding area is gorgeous. There are shades of green that I never knew existed.

Not exactly undiscovered!

Ella is known for tea. In Sinhalese, Ella means “water fall.” There are indeed many waterfalls in the area. The area is surrounded by hills covered with cloud forests and tea plantations. A cloud forest is a tropical forest that is frequently covered by low level mist. The biodiversity is very rich.

We walked along the train tracks to hike up to Ella Rock. A hot and dusty climb through amazing trees to a breath taking view.

We also walked along the tea plantations and visited Lipton Seat. The founder of Lipton tea, a British gentleman named Lipton, in the 1840s, bought land on the cheap after a coffee blight and created a huge tea estate. The history of tea in this area is wrought with difficulty, often importing Tamil people from Southern India to work in slave like conditions. However, now the estates are owned by wealthy Sri Lankans who sell thier tea to Lipton. Women dominate the fields, making about $5 a day for thier labor of picking the leaves. We visited the Dambatene Tea Factory, built in 1890, and were able to learn and witness the making of tea, a tedious process of drying, cleaning, roasting and sorting. The machines and process have not much different from the late 1800s. I will never see Lipton tea as ordinary again.