Thailand
Located between the Indian Ocean in the West and the Pacific in the East,
Thailand borders on Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia in its North as well as Malaysia
in the South. Tea cultivation takes place in the north of the country, at
altitudes above 1,000 m.
For some decades now, tea has been cultivated
here by various ethnic groups, also called “hill tribes”, as well as Chinese
immigrants who have found their way into these mountainous regions during the
chaos of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and have brought with them their
century old knowhow of tea. The origin of the various hill tribes is unknown; in
most cases they are nomads who have settled there over the
centuries.
Since the 1980s, tea cultivation was pushed and financially
accelerated by the current King Bhumibo with the goal to turn the farmers and
their families away from the cultivation of opium and help them build a secure
future income. As a supporting measure, selected tea plants of fi rst rate were
imported from Taiwan in the 1990s and integrated in teagardens in even the most
remote mountain villages.
Thailand is still a young tea country, but it
will surely soon make a lasting impression on the tea world
map.