Cameron Highlands: Tea Farm

Cameron Highlands is 5,000 ft above sea level and is a place where people grow strawberries, tea plants, vegetables and all kinds of flowers. It has several simple towns like Tanah Rata, Brinchang and Ringlet where schools and shop lots are situated.

Sounds like it’s just a cold and simple place with farmers every where, but when you go there on weekends or public holidays, you will spot more Singaporeans than the locals. At first I couldn’t understand why Singaporeans like to drive for hours just to come to Cameron Highlands to see vegetables, but after Amy brought me around, I instantly like this place. A lot.

One of the major reason I like Cameron Highlands is that the weather is cooler with temperature rarely above 25°C all year round. If you stay in Perlis which is a place where it once holds one of the highest temperature records in Malaysia which is more than 40°C, you will love the cool fresh air in Cameron Highlands. At Cameron Highlands you can walk around in town at noon without sweating, try this in Perlis and you will be sweating profusely.

There are two roads entrance to Cameron Highlands, via Tapah and Simpang Pulai. The Tapah road is for people coming from the south of Peninsula Malaysia while the Simpang Pulai is from the north.

For me I like to use the Simpang Pulai road because it’s way better than the Tapah road. First of all it’s safer as the Simpang Pulai road was built like a highway, it’s wider and you won’t easily crash into the steep valleys. But if you think that you can drift at the Simpang Pulai road as if you have a car that carry tofu then you will definitely crash.

The Simpang Pulai road: high speed bends, less traffic and heavy fog

The traffic at Simpang Pulai road is also lesser compare to the Tapah road as most tourists from KL and Singapore use the nearer Tapah road. You can drive slowly on the Simpang Pulai road while enjoying the view, believe me, the Simpang Pulai road is one of the best driving road in Malaysia.

Whenever I visit Cameron Highlands, I never fail to visit a place. For me it is a must-visit place because it has the most beautiful scenery in Cameron Highlands.

The tea farm.

Yes, you can do this in the tea farm. But you cannot pee on the plants.

The tea farm is owned by BOH Plantations Sdn. Bhd., the largest tea manufacturer in Malaysia. The company has tea farm in many places at Cameron Highlands and only a few are open to the public. Sungei Palas tea centre is the latest offering by the company and it is the most beautiful among all tea farms.

The tea farm is all over the hills as if the hills are covering a tea blanket. The scene is absolutely breathtaking. I can sit there all day just admiring the view.


The Sungei Palas tea centre has a café where you can sit down sipping BOH’s finest tea and enjoying the view of the tea farm while the cool fresh air makes you stop thinking about deadlines and pressures. The café is usually packed with tourists during weekends and holidays, so if you want to enjoy the tea and the view quietly, go there on weekdays, explain to your boss or lecturers about wanting to take a day off to the tea farm, maybe they will follow you there as well.

This is the huge crowd if you visit the tea centre on holidays

Inside the tea factory

Tourists can also visit the tea factory behind the tea centre. There will be factory guides to bring tourists around the factory and explain how the end products are made. The tea factory is filled with the fragrance of tea because of the grinding and heating process, so everyone coming out from the factory will smell like tea.

As a profit-minded commercialized tea company, BOH also set up a gift shop in the tea centre which sells different kinds of tea products and other tea-related products like t-shirts with a big “BOH” logo printed on it. But since the tea centre is a tourist destination, the pricing is also damn expensive. The cheapest item in the gift shop is the RM1 postcard.

Choosing postcards can be a headache for Susan

My advice is that if you want to get the ummph from BOH tea, buy it from Tesco or Carrefour.