I’m not someone who thinks much about where my pleasures come from. Take my morning cup of tea. After boiling water in a kettle, I reach into the pantry and choose from a box of either Earl Grey or Rooibos Chai, drop a tea bag in my favorite mug, and dowse it with hot water. After a few minutes I add some oat milk and voila, I’m all set.
Where did my tea actually come from? My pantry of course! Before that? Hmm, Asia somewhere?
In fact, chances are my tea came from a “hill station” somewhere in a former British colony. Someplace like Darjeeling, Simla or Assam in India. Or quite possibly, Malaysia’s lovely Cameron Highlands.
Created during the British Raj from 1858-1947, hill stations were meant to reproduce the home country. As Lord Lytton put it, hill stations offered “such beautiful English rain, such delicious English mud.” They also afforded colonists a break from the oppressive heat of the lowlands. As a bonus, many hill stations provided the perfect climate for the growing of tea.
The Cameron Highlands in Malaysia arrived a little bit late to the game. Located about 200 miles north of Kuala Lumpur, it got its name from Scottish explorer William Cameron, who was apparently more interested in exploring than developing. The Cameron Highlands didn’t really take off as a hill station, however, until the 1930s, when the British and other locals moved in to settle the slopes of the mountain – soon to be followed by tea planters and vegetable growers.
To visit the area today is to be dazzled by acre after acre of tea fields. The way the fields gracefully sweep down the mountain valley, creating an intricate tapestry of patterns and textures, is an absolutely awesome sight to behold – the color green burning into your retinas.
The Highlands are also a great place to pop into an “authentic” English pub, complete with whitewashed walls and wooden beams, and grab a nice ale or perhaps a glass of bitters. How strange – and wonderful – to be vacationing in sweltering Southeast Asia and yet enjoying a cool day in an English Village, eating fish ‘n chips and washing it down with a mug of stout.
Or perhaps, a nice cup of Cameron Highlands tea.
(It’s worth taking the time, I think, to ponder where our ordinary household staples come from. Where is tea from? Coffee? Peanut butter? How did it all get here? Who grew it? Who picked it? Who packed and shipped it? That tomato, avocado and lettuce sandwich with pepper and salt you’re eating is, in fact, a massive team effort, contributed on by dozens of people from across the world.
Definitely worth a few words of gratitude before you tuck in!)
(Dave Blum is the creator of Dr. Clue Treasure Hunts, www.drclue.com, a teambuilding company featuring over 150 treasure hunt locations worldwide. He has visited over 40 countries in his 60+ years of life and plans to keep traveling until he gives up the ghost. Dave lives in Northern California with his wife, Donica, and their 18-year-old Maine Coon, Ava — an indoor cat who dreams of one day escaping captivity and exploring her own neighborhood Wow Places.)