SOME drinks are ordered. Others are part of the furniture.
In Malaysia, tea is firmly in the second category: with kaya toast at breakfast, beside roti canai at the mamak, or at home when someone says, “Make one cup first.”
The cup may be small, but the conversation can last until the ice melts and the tea goes cold.
I first learnt about Cameron Highlands tea in primary school Geography, then called Ilmu Alam. Years later, as a Botany student, I saw those lessons come to life among the tea fields.
I joined trips to Cameron Highlands and Bukit Cheeding, comparing tea grown in highland and lowland settings.
The bushes were more than a green backdrop. They were plants to study and a lesson in how climate, soil, cultivation and processing shape the cup.
Green, black, white and oolong teas all come from the same species, Camellia sinensis. Much of the difference lies in how the leaves are picked and processed.
Work assignments later took me to Sabah Tea in Ranau.
Around 2000, my work with the Malaysian Palm Oil Association (MPOA) brought me back to tea from a different perspective.
Meeting Datuk Tristan Beauchamp Russell and his daughter Caroline on several occasions helped me see the people and enterprise behind the familiar leaf.
Tea was cultivated and enjoyed in China long before it became a global drink.
Chinese migrants carried tea customs to Malaya, though precisely when tea first arrived is uncertain.
By the 17th and 18th centuries, tea had become a prized commodity in Europe.
The British appetite for it grew into a daily habit, and the East India Company built a powerful business around tea from China.
But Britain had a trade problem: Chinese merchants wanted silver, while the British had few goods China wanted in return.
The proposed solution left a bitter aftertaste. British merchants smuggled opium grown in India into China despite Chinese prohibitions.
Profits helped pay for tea, deepening an unequal trade.
The opium trade helped trigger the Opium Wars, which devastated China and expanded foreign power there.
Tea’s history is not only about teapots and afternoon tea; it is also a story of empire, addiction, coercion and war.
Tea also travelled as compressed bricks, traded as currency in parts of Asia.
A brick could be brewed or exchanged.
Today we ask what a cup costs; once, tea itself could settle the bill.
The trade also crossed the Atlantic.
In 1773, protesters dumped more than 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbour, protesting the tax and the East India Company’s privileged position in the colonies.
The Boston Tea Party became a symbol of resistance to British rule.
A leaf in hot water had become a political statement.
There is a less innocent botanical twist.
In 1848, the East India Company sent Scottish botanist Robert Fortune to China to obtain tea plants, seeds and cultivation know-how for its plantations in India.
To enter districts closed to foreigners, he travelled in disguise, sometimes posing as a Chinese merchant.
By modern description, this was a form of plant espionage serving colonial commercial ambitions.
As tea and know-how crossed borders, so did the prospect of profit, though not necessarily to those who had nurtured the crop.
Fortune was his surname; whose fortune travelled with the tea is the sharper question.
That global drama had a quieter chapter in Malaya, where tea had to find a foothold alongside better-established crops.
In 1929, businessman John Archibald “Archie” Russell and A B Milne, a veteran planter from Sri Lanka, began planting tea in Cameron Highlands.
Their work created the country’s first highland tea garden, later Boh Plantations.
The venture began during the Great Depression on steep, remote terrain.
Boh’s name has a journey too.
It derives from “Bohea”, an early name for tea associated with China’s Wuyi Mountains in Fujian.
The company also says boh means “precious happiness” in Mandarin.
A fitting name for a cup meant to bring a little happiness. The family’s commitment was tested early. Archie died of tuberculosis in Singapore, aged 50.
Despite the financial difficulties that followed, his widow, Kathleen, insisted Boh remain in the family.
During the Second World War, the estate was occupied by the Japanese and largely abandoned. After the war, their son Tristan joined the business at 21.
His early years coincided with the Malayan Emergency.
Troops were stationed around the plantations, and Tristan slept with a pistol under his pillow for security.
The tranquil tea-view cafe was not always the setting.
Datuk Tristan Russell passed away on Nov 2, 2023, aged 91.
He was a visionary who shaped the company and Malaysian tea, as well as an approachable, soft-spoken man who checked on people among the tea fields.
Appointed chairman in 1966, he served for 53 years, expanding Boh’s estates and modernising tea production.
Today, visitors can enjoy a cup overlooking rolling green hills.
Earlier generations kept the business alive through war, the Emergency and uncertainty.
Their story is a lesson in resilience: staying, adapting and carrying on through difficult seasons.
Tristan also modernised the work. He raised one tea harvester’s daily productivity from 40kg to 200kg.
In the rolling room, a task once requiring 27 people came to be managed by one person overseeing the machinery.
Mechanisation can lift productivity and ease demanding work, but workers need the chance to gain new skills and opportunities too.
The machine may roll the leaves; human judgement still matters.
He understood branding as well. Boh credits him with pioneering early television advertising and creating “Mr Boh”, one of Asia’s first televised company mascots.
The slogan “Boh Ada Ummph!” came later and became a national hit. Even tea had its star turn.
A Boh tribute captures Tristan’s humility. At a meeting, tea arrived without a spoon.
He stirred it with his pen while his counterpart hurried to apologise and find a spoon.
Tristan thought nothing of it. As I might say, “tiada sudu, pen pun berguna”.
Caroline was appointed chief executive officer (CEO) in 2003 and is now Boh’s chairman.
The company has expanded its tea range and exports premium teas to Asia, Europe and North America.
It is reducing plastic in selected packaging and using paper from sustainably managed forests, adapting while keeping one eye on its legacy.
Caroline Russell deserves credit for championing Boh’s long-standing support for Malaysian performing arts.
Through its title sponsorship of the Boh Cameronian Arts Awards, established in 2002, the company helps celebrate the artists and creative teams who keep Malaysia’s performing arts thriving.
I remember meeting Tristan and Caroline with gratitude.
They gave the familiar Boh name a human face and deepened my appreciation of the people and legacy behind the leaf.
As Boh approaches its centenary in 2029, the family’s story continues.
Tea’s Malaysian story reaches beyond Pahang.
My trips to Sabah Tea in Ranau began with the climb from the coast into cooler highland air, where tea connects landscape, livelihood and local identity.
Developed from the 1970s, Sabah Tea began production and processing in Ranau in 1978 and has since become part of the area’s visitor experience.
Cameron Highlands offers a similar invitation: Boh’s Sungei Palas Tea Centre opened in 2007. Factory visits, tea tasting and sweeping views help visitors follow the leaf’s journey from garden to cup.
A cup from Sabah carries its own sense of place, shaped by different hills, weather and history from tea grown in Cameron Highlands.
Value comes not only from processing the leaf, but from sharing its story and welcoming visitors to where it grows.
The hills are more than a scenic backdrop; they are part of the product and deserve careful stewardship.
For many Malaysians, tea’s most democratic address is the mamak stall.
Students stretch a small budget, friends prolong a chat, families pause after shopping and night owls discover that “one last cup” can become two.
Around the table, muhibbah finds a place, often with another round.
At the centre is teh tarik: strong tea, condensed milk and a practised pour between two vessels.
Its roots are linked to Indian Muslim immigrants who ran food stalls in Malaya. It spread beyond those establishments into a shared Malaysian ritual.
Pulling blends and cools the drink, creating froth.
In skilled hands, it is practical theatre.
The glass may be ordinary; the journey between the tins is not.
The mamak stall has made tea part of everyday Malaysian life, with people of different backgrounds sharing food and conversation.
Politics, football and family matters all have their place, as does the debate over whether the next cup should be kurang manis or kaw.
Tea will not settle every disagreement, but it offers a table where the discussion can continue.
Teh tarik has also reached competitions, turning the pour into a show of skill, timing and showmanship.
The arc may rise higher and the crowd grow louder, but the essentials remain tea, milk and a steady hand.
The audience enjoys the drama; the cleaner probably prefers a shorter arc.
Every cup completes a long journey: from growing and harvesting to processing, packing and sale. Though modest by global standards, tea plantations in Cameron Highlands and Sabah support agricultural heritage, livelihoods and tourism.
Their visitor experience offers oil palm a lesson.
A garden walk makes agriculture tangible, but a scenic stop is only the start.
Deeper engagement lets visitors see the operation, meet its workers and ask questions on the ground.
I saw this through IJM Plantations’ “Walk with CEO” programme, launched in 2004.
Non-governemntal organisations, journalists, analysts, ambassadors, academics and members of the public followed the “Seed to Oil” journey, visiting the research centre, estates and mills, as well as workers’ homes, clinics, education centres and conservation areas.
The aim was to show not just a crop, but the people and livelihoods connected with it.
Tak tahu, maka tak cinta, goes the Malay saying: if you do not know, you cannot love.
The programme invited firsthand experience, questions and honest answers.
Agreement was never required.
At one mill, a visitor mistook motionless egrets perched on fresh fruit bunches for bird statues, perhaps part of some “agricultural feng shui”. Then one moved.
Laughter opened the way to a conversation about how the birds hunted insects and small reptiles disturbed by mill activity.
A small surprise revealed a little plantation ecology.
Agrotourism brings people to the gate; engagement welcomes them into the story, complications included. It also lets staff explain their work and hear outside views.
Tea’s lesson for palm oil is to make each visit the start of a relationship.
A view may catch the eye; trust grows through openness, conversation and time.
My tea memories began in primary-school Ilmu Alam, where I first learnt of Cameron Highlands tea. Years later, Botany field trips took me among the tea bushes, work brought me to Sabah Tea in Ranau, and MPOA introduced me to Tristan Russell and Caroline.
Different places and chapters, joined by one green leaf.
That leaf carries a story of trade, empire, botanical discovery and local livelihoods. Boh speaks of resilience; Sabah Tea, of place; and teh tarik, of muhibbah shared over a humble glass.
Tea offers palm oil a lesson: open the gates.
Let people see the work, meet the people and understand the community behind the crop.
A plantation is more than a view or a yield; it is a living trust.
So, teh tarik or teh ais? Choose by weather, hour or company. In either glass are the hills, the hands that picked the leaves and memories that reach from a classroom to the field.
The last sip disappears; the stories linger. Tea may steep quietly, but it leaves a lasting ummph.
Joseph Tek Choon Yee has over 30 years of experience in the plantation industry, with a strong background in oil palm research and development, C-suite leadership and industry advocacy. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
