
lush tea shrubs
under barren trees;
what’s the tea know?
lush tea shrubs
under barren trees;
what’s the tea know?
The cone-hatted ladies converge on the plantation, a spreading swarm, picking the fresh green leaves, tossing them over the shoulder into a backpacked wicker basket, leaving behind a flattop trimmed tea shrub. The mid-day rains drive away the pickers for a short time, but they'll be back, squeezing between dripping tea trees, their skirts saturated with the cold morning rain that will steam off into a muggy afternoon. tea pickers head back to the fields after mid-day rains
What kind of shrub grows an Empire?
What kind of shrub shifts the well-laid tracks of global trade routes?
What kind of shrub doesn’t know whether to be of nature or man?
Its even green sings the song of nature, stretching in an unbroken landscape to the forest’s pristine chaos-
-except when in need of picking. Then its bright, almost glowing, fresh tips are the shade of a newly trimmed outfield, standing out against nature’s dark olive.
But, its flat-topped, close-cropped ‘do tells a tale that’s all man, as do the fine parts that section off the shrubs into labyrinthine patterns for the pickers to navigate.
And what kind of shrub, each day, draws hordes of humans with wicker baskets on their backs and conical hats that are to the Vietnamese Paddy Hat what a novelty sombrero is to a real sombrero.
What kind of shrub…
Flat-topped tea shrubs
round over the contours
of ancient, eroded mountains
worn into low-lying lumps.
The army green plants
sport tight crew cuts–
the recently plucked.
The lime green plants
are slightly shaggy–
pickers will soon visit.
Tips will be tossed
over the shoulder
into conic, woven baskets.
Leaves to be dried in hot boxes
fired by crackling wood.
Crushed.
Bagged.
Steeped in boiling water.
Fusing into you.
Sri Lanka is loaded with tea factories that can be visited for free [except what you may spend at the factory’s gift shop or restaurant.] If you’re interesting in how your food and beverages get to look like they do, these are nice places to see how this:
gets turned into this:
Most of the tea that is produced on the Glenloch tea factory isn’t sold under the Glenloch brand. Instead, about 75% gets sent to Colombo, where it is auctioned off on a market to the highest bidder. That’s when it comes to be the tea you recognize from brands on your local shelf, e.g. Lipton. The bags above are the product that will be shipped to market.