Araksa Tea Plantation, Chiang Mai

Our final activity in Chiang Mai was a visit to a tea plantation. Nothing better to drink than a hot cup of tea. Unless, of course, it's a nice cold glass of iced tea!

A plantation, in Thailand, is simply a commercial farm. Araksa is an organic tea grower. As a bear, I was excited to have some fresh tea to drink!

To get there, since it's over an hour from Chiang Mai to the north, we hired our good friend Mr. Chris. Mr. Tee, the owner of Tee Chiangmai Tours, was our driver for the day. We were able to arrive at the plantation for the afternoon tour.

Khun Charlie explained the history of the plantation and showed us how to pick leaves for green tea. 

To pick white tea, it has to be sunrise or sunset because the buds, the part being picked, start to open with sunlight. That would change the flavor.

 

And black tea has several leaves, the stem, and a bud. The bud is for flavor, the leaves for color, and the stem has caffeine.

K. Charlie with white tea, K. A with green tea and black tea

But the green tea is just one leaf and bud together. Once we had picked leaves and placed them in our baskets, Khun A, an intern, sorted them and weighed them. 

After that, we had Khun Yong demonstrate the roasting process. Green tea has two roastings, with the tea being hand-rolled in between. Black tea and white tea are processed in the factory.

And it turns out that the leaves are 80% water!We weren't allowed in the factory because it is a sterile environment like any food factory. However, we were able to view the machines for sorting, cleaning, drying, rolling, and processing.





 
 Finally it was time for my favorite part! Once we had finished our tour, we got to enjoy iced honey tea and hot green tea along with some fresh baked rice crisps.