Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
VIKING.COM 43<br />
TEA & HONEY<br />
Tea picking at the Tregothnan Estate<br />
in Cornwall with Viking Venus<br />
Words and food photography Karen Burns-Booth<br />
BIOGRAPHY<br />
Karen Burns-Booth<br />
is a freelance food<br />
and travel writer, as<br />
well as a food stylist,<br />
and recipe developer.<br />
Originally from South<br />
Africa, she now lives on<br />
the edge of Snowdonia<br />
National Park<br />
A<br />
fter an invigorating walk up<br />
steep but bucolic country lanes,<br />
winding past beehives and over<br />
wooden stiles, we came to the most<br />
beautiful view of Cornwall's River Fal.<br />
We had arrived at the tea terraces on<br />
England's first ever Tea Estate.<br />
Tregothnan Estate is near Falmouth in<br />
Cornwall, and I was lucky enough to be<br />
on an included excursion when sailing on<br />
the Viking Venus. Here we walked amongst<br />
wildflower meadows, ancient orchards<br />
and grassy countryside tracks. Harvesting<br />
Britain’s first home-grown English tea<br />
in 2005, and thus creating the ultimate<br />
Britishness in every cup, it has certainly<br />
become a must-visit on every tourist’s list.<br />
16 years on, and over 20,000 tea bushes<br />
are planted every year in this new English<br />
tea garden, which is wholly suited to<br />
the local Cornwall microclimate. It’s a<br />
fascinating sight to see rows and<br />
rows of tea bushes, something that we<br />
may normally associate with Ceylon,<br />
India or Kenya. I was intrigued to learn<br />
that the flora around the tea includes the<br />
famous pink Magnolia Campbellii that<br />
was introduced from Darjeeling and often<br />
heralds the spring in Cornwall before it<br />
arrives in Darjeeling.<br />
I’ve been tea plucking in Sri Lanka, but<br />
I never thought I’d be lucky enough<br />
to go tea plucking in England and as I<br />
wandered up and down the terraces, I<br />
kept looking over to the River Fal, as it<br />
snaked its way through the nearby valley.<br />
The sun glinted on the shimmering water,<br />
soft clouds were buffeted along by a gentle<br />
summer breeze, and it was hard to believe<br />
that I wasn’t back in Sri Lanka harvesting<br />
tea with the local tea pickers there.<br />
After our walk we all enjoyed a cup<br />
of Tregothnan Afternoon Tea with<br />
homemade shortbread biscuits, taken<br />
in the small but perfectly charming tea<br />
garden. For a tea addict like me, and as a<br />
recipe writer and recipe creator, this was<br />
one of the highlights of my cruise whilst<br />
on Viking Venus. The trip even inspired<br />
me to create new recipes using this<br />
iconic British ingredient!
Change language