Day 79 - Tea Factories!

We enjoyed breakfast in the sun in a beautiful spot overlooking the tea gardens. Meanwhile our host was arranging for us to visit a nearby tea factory and leant us the hose to wash our bikes ahead of packing them.

We'd never have found this factory without the local tip off, nestled away juat a few hundred metres from where we'd stayed.

A new employee showed us round until the main guy rocked up to give us a full tour and tasting. It's a boutique operation making tea mostly for the French and Canadian markets. 16 types of speciality tea, all grown in the region. He was super kind, very patient with our endless questions and very pleased with how much interest we showed. We weren't actually massive fans of the tea (weak French stuff) but its quality was undeniable and we wanted to buy some to show appreciation. Well that failed - he gave us a packet each and sent us on our way with a big smile! This place is awesome and I feel like I had the full experience of a tea broker (a career path I'm still very much considering). We had no idea what was in it for him other than passion. Awesome!

The hotel manager had also told us abour another factory in the region. We rolled up to the impressive estate gates and were promptly denied by the security guard. Oh. But then one quick call to the office later and the gates were opening and we were sitting in the Director's office, yet another tea in hand!

This operation was a much, much larger scale, although the same basic process and machines. We ended up having a two hour tour of the factory including every floor and room. Since the harvest season has ended only the final sorting room was active, but the machines were nonetheless impressive! We felt like foreign dignitaries as we were shown around, indeed, we were in the company of many such people who'd visited from various foreign embassies in Kathmandu (it's something of a right of passage for new staff there apparently haha).

We said our goodbyes and left as two extremely satisfied, but slightly puzzled tea nerds. What on Earth is in it for them? You can't call up a random factory in Europe and expect to be shown around immediately, well, I assume you can't - come to think of it I've never actually tried...

Then we realised we actually had to cycle to the airport town which was 45 miles away. Ah. Cycling mode was not active, and my bowels were really not onside, necessitating more than one emergency stop in the woods...so we knew it was going to be a less fun afternoon than morning! Some inefficient but required food and tea stops later and we were back to Indian reality.

Descending the hill and crossing the border into the loud, hassling, insanely smoggy and dirty country again was not an activity we relished I'll be honest, although the border guards were on good form and we had a nice laugh.

Turns out we only had 5 minutes to spare before the border closed and were saved by the 15 minute time zone switch - phew! One of those things that would have been extremely stressful had we realised but as was worked out just fine!

We were intending to source a bike box and pack the bikes on arrival and then explore Darjeeling tomorrow, but on arrival, after many short nights of sleep, and after the first bike shop had no box, we decided to just retreat to a hotel exhausted and use our favourite app to order tons of food! That's right we're back on swiggy baby!

Food spend today: 21.51 euros

Tea consumption: 13!