TEA FACTORY
Tea factory which reaches some 50 t of tea per year in the Morne Seychellois National Park.
At least two traces remain of the passage of the English to the Seychelles: we drive on the left and drink tea. Better yet, we grow it! Brought from Kenya in 1962 by Bill Anderson, the first plants were planted on the hills of Morne Blanc. Four years later, a small factory was built. Sixty years have passed, the production of this Tea Factory now reaches some 50 tons per year. However, the harvest is not enough for Seychelles' teapots, as the Seychellois consume 80 to 90 tonnes a year, hence the need to import from Sri Lanka.
Cultivated on 110 arpents in altitude (up to 390 m), the tea leaves are harvested from September to March by about a hundred pickers (who must pick at least 18 kg each between 7 am and noon). Once the leaves have withered and crushed, the tea is sorted and fermented the same day. Dried, re-sorted and sorted again, it is finally flavoured with vanilla, especially for the local market.
The company also markets a second product, grown nearby, lemongrass, which is well known to tourists, who sometimes still drink a cup at the end of dinner, although the custom is disappearing. The Seychellois, for their part, no longer drink this herbal tea, which has many virtues (digestive and anti-rheumatic). The whole range of "Seychellois" teas is sold there, at prices similar to those in the shops. A good stopover on this enchanting road, all the more so as from these heights one benefits from a plunging view of the west coast.
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