My Weekly Powerup | #club100 | Tea production on the island of São Miguel, Azores (Portugal) | #steemexclusive / 22 photos

digi-me (73)MEMBER 🇳🇴- CLUB100in Steemit Travel • 2 years ago (edited)

Correana Tea Factory was founded in 1883, which makes it one of the oldest teafactories in Europe. You will find it on the north coast of the island of São Miguel. They still produce tea and has a small museum where you can study the prosess and taste the tea produced here. The small shop in the factory sells the different varieties of tea. At the end of touring the muesum, you can sit down with tea and cakes in the cafe with a great view to the fields of tea surrounding the place.

Directly opposite the factory are the tea fields. A marked path has been created that you can follow and thus have the opportunity to enjoy the sight of all the greenery and study tea leaves up close. The trail is uphill, so that after a while we got a good view down towards the factory and the coast. We started with the hike first and visited the museum afterwards. Unfortunately, it rained more or less while we were out in the tea fields. But we had rain gear with us, so it was fine to walk. I think we spent an hour or so in the fields before we returned to the factory.

The history of tea production in Azores probably goes back the 19th century, but it is believed that the first tea plants were here already in the 18th century. The first seeds was brought to Azores from Brazil and by mid 1800 there were several properties growing teas on the island. Many of the producers had little knowledge of how to run the production in an efficient way, so a chinese tea master was hired to teach the tea producers on the island.

The small museum does give good information and understanding of the process. From start to the end you will be able to see the different stages of production. Some of the machinery is original, that have been in use from the start. We had the option of doing a guided tour or just walk around by ourselves. We chose the latter, but did pick up brochures with information. After the museum visit, tea tasting was a great way to end the tour. The gift shop has a large variety of teas, and I did end up buying some.

When tea production started it was expected to become an important source of making the islands become wealthy - by exporting tea. But during the 20th century there were several incidents which led to several manufacturers having to stop production

After the museum visit we had the opportunity to taste both the black and the green tea. The tea is made from the same leave. There are different tastes, due to the difference from how the leaves are treated. Correana's tea are not treated with any chemicals. The reason is that they don't need that, is because there are no deseases on the island that can do any harm to the plants.

On a rainy day, a museum visit is a good alternative to any other outdoor activity. Since I have never visited a tea plantation and a tea factory before, this visit was a good and interesting experience.

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