With a ‘cup of tea’ being the national drink of England, you would think that anyone born and raised in Blighty would know quite a lot about it, such as where it comes from, how it grows, and what a tea plantation looks like…

To be honest, the only thing I knew about tea until our recent visit to the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, was that it comes in a rather convenient pyramid-shaped bag – and that most of my fellow Englishmen and women ruined it with a splash of milk (yuk!).

I had heard that tea comes from China, India and Yorkshire… but not once during those long and arduous geography classes at school, did my teacher ever mention that tea grows in Malaysia.

However, I can confirm that our beloved tea most definitely does grow in Malaysia, and it is the best tea I have ever tasted!

A vast and lush area of rolling green hills, the Cameron Highlands sit at an altitude of approximately 1500m in the Titiwangsa Mountains, just 200km from the bustling capital of Kuala Lumpur.

As one of Malaysia’s most extensive hill stations, the Cameron Highlands covers an area the size of Singapore, and as it is easily accessible from both the east and west coasts (buses go there every day from most larger cities), it is definitely worth a visit if travelling through Malaysia.

The first thing we noticed when we arrived in the quaint town of Tanah Rata was the wonderful aroma of the tea plantations and the verdant greenery that surrounded this tiny but busy tourist town.

With a good choice of hotels, bars and local restaurants, Tanah Rata is the perfect place to stay if you intend to visit a tea plantation, and while anything more than two nights would probably be ‘too much’, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay.

We chose to visit the Boh Tea Plantation, Malaysia’s largest producer of premium black teas, and after wandering through the plantations at our leisure, picking leaves and tasting the unfinished product, we headed to the restaurant for a cuppa of Malaysian tea …

The perfect end to yet another perfect day on our round the world trip, our Cameron Highland adventure was an unforgettable experience, but now I have tried Malaysian tea, I don’t seem to get the ‘OO’ with my Typhoo!