Tea

Watching Mary Berry on TV making her delicious calorie-laden cakes for tea I was interested to see she went to Cornwall to the Tregothnan Estate where the first English tea is grown.  My tea expert friend from Tokyo sent me a present of this tea some time ago.  It was pleasantly aromatic, not unlike the best Ceylon tea grown in the Hill Country of Sri Lanka.

When Don and I visited Sri Lanka in the 1980s we stayed with Reginald and Prima on the coast in Galle.  It was extremely hot.  We all decided to go to Nurawa Eilya  (pronounced Nuralia( in the hills where the best tea is grown.  Before we set out by car Prima's son whispered to me that his mother had on a new sari.  It was beautiful, all pale blue and silver which we duly admired.    It was a beautiful drive.  We passed many large waterfalls under one of which a whole family was having a shower.  The Sri Lankans are very clean people and can be seen all along the roads washing themselves and their children and their clothes in a river.  (Though perhaps by now they have all got washing machines)

We stayed at a very luxurious hotel in Nuwara Eilya.  The first thing Prima did was to head off to the shops to buy herself a cardigan!  After the heat of Galle it was like an English March so we all dressed up to go to the Golf Club for dinner.