Day 44 Huntingdon Lodge

Chilled out day around Huntingdon: Early morning alarm call courtesy of bats coming back from a nights hunting to roost in the roof space above our room; tea and coffee at 6:30 followed by leisurely breakfast at 7:00 on the khonde. Plumped for a leisurely walk round the tea and coffee fields (alternative mountain bike option being rejected as Ian’s shoulder is still playing up) the tea fields have been planted over the last 90 years with some dating as far back as 1926 and whilst production isn’t currently very high (it’s the dry season), tea was still being picked.

At one point we ran into the field kitchen for the plantation workers with the cooks busy preparing the 12 noon meal of beans and sema which we were encouraged to try!!

Whilst the sema was nice to try - a more testy lunch at the lodge followed, with a chilled out afternoon watching the world go by and the arrival of the tour group we met at Williams Falls yesterday – it’s a small world!!  3pm and off for tea tasting at the Satemwa tea factory guided by “Mr Custom” the coffee production Manager.  Interesting facts you didn’t know about tea: different tea types (builders, green, earl grey) all originate from the same tea bushes, it’s how they are processed that makes them different. Bulk standard black tea sells at $3/Kilo and is mechanically processed, whist specialist teas such as Oolong are hand rolled and attract a significant premium rising up to $100/Kilo. Your likely to have drunk Malawian (Satemwa) tea in some of favourite UK brands such as PG Tips, Twinings … albeit blended in the UK with tea from other countries.  Finally tea tasting is a difficult business – smell it, taste it and spit it out or swallow it. Swallowing samples of 15 different types of tea was quite enough - Malawian black tea is very strong and even builders would struggle to drink it unblended.  A specialist tea call “satemwa needles” came out top.

Dinner was set up for just the two of us  -  clearly an episode from cluedo, Ian's guess the murder was committed by Dr Nunn on the veranda with the candle stick!