10th December 2022, Saturday, Tea Factory Visit

Jason needed us to be up and ready to go by 8.45 as the Tea Factory was about 45 minutes away and only open between 9and 11 am. So I rushed up at 7 am thinking it was much later!

The drive to the Bois Cheri tea plantation area was almost a rerun of our journey back from the Gorges Viewpoint of yesterday. We arrived in good time and were able to walk around the museum area before our English speaking tour began. As Geoff and I are going near to the Assam area in India it was interesting to read that it is thought that was were tea originated. Although our guide spoke good English it was difficult to hear most of what she said over the noise of the machinery. The tour itself was interesting enough without too much input but one thing I was unaware of was that from the leaves picked at the very top of the tea plant they had 3 different outcomes. The tiny shoot at the top produces a very expensive white tea, the next 2 young leaves are for green tea and the larger leaf produces the black tea, my favourite!

After the tour we went around the lake up to the restaurant, shop and tea tasting area. We had about 10 varieties of teas and herbal teas on the table for us to try. We were brought boiling water and milk for the exercise. I personally liked the caramel tea, lemon grass and ginger, coconut flavour and our normal black tea. I forgot to mention that the heavens opened just as we arrived so we sat in the car for about 10 minutes until it subsided.

We bought some tea and as it was still a bit too early for lunch, Jason had discovered a restaurant with good reviews which was about 15 minutes away, so off we went. When we arrived we discovered that the restaurant was in a shopping mall which I think we all would agree “ looked a bit run down.” Not to be daunted we went inside and it was absolutely fine. We mounted the stairs and into the Hungry Birds restaurant where we had a great meal at a very reasonable cost so well done Jason.

It was time to head back as it was about an hour’s run away and the dog had been left for quite a long while. Her reward was me taking her for a walk around the block and fortunately we both managed to find our way back. 

We are not sure whether we will have enough energy to watch the England. France match tonight as it will start at 11pm Mauritian time. 

We managed a short FaceTime with Nicola and Thomas plus a view of it snowing outside their window. Not sorry to miss the very cold weather.










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