Under the stars, he was there, and the brilliant Milky Way spread out behind him, covering the entire sky. Under the inky blue sky, the unreserved perfect pyramidal mountain shape told me that yes, it was him, the behemoth of the wasteland, the golden temple, the king of the Pamirs.

K2, right there, at a glance......

With the snow-capped mountains at hand, Bloart seems to be within reach, knowing that it is the 12th highest peak in the world at 8051 meters!

It is very difficult to continue the journey, the snow is knee-deep, the ice crevasses are dense, the slope is extremely steep, the ice climbing equipment is required, and the weather is greatly affected, only a few teams can complete it every year, and it is already satisfying to get here.

Take a two-day break and hop on a Sri Lankan train to connect the tea experience. Rumbling through the misty tea mountains, you may pass by the tea pickers with morning dew. Whether it's a creative cuisine with tea or a colonial afternoon tea, the fusion and transformation of ancient civilization and modern skills here are in the middle of a second.

Trains slow down in the highlands. This is the mountainous area of south-central Sri Lanka, with an altitude of more than 1,200 meters, and the highland tea in Sri Lankan black tea is produced in this area.

Hop off at Houghton and head to Ceylorails, the world's first tea-themed resort villa hotel and a member of the Relais & Châteaux boutique hotel. There are four holiday homes, this time the one is called Norwood, a house built in 1890, which used to be a place where the plantation owner entertained guests and enjoyed the scenery, more than 1,200 meters above sea level, in the middle of the tea plantation.

As soon as he entered the house, the housekeeper brought a cup of tea to Johnson: "You look a little tired, I think this cup of tea is suitable for you." ”

It was a cup of Moroccan mint tea with pineapple juice and orange juice. The welcome drink refreshed me a lot, but I was hungry and looking forward to the unique tea meal, served with tea and freshly picked vegetables and spices from the surrounding estates.

After listening to the dietary preferences, dinner begins 20 minutes later. The fireplace in the dining room banishes the chill, and the candlelight flickers on the wooden table. The first course is tea-smoked chicken breast with vegetable salad, which is quite decent.

The second course begins to be presumptuous, mixing rose vanilla black tea with mushroom bisque for a delicate taste, the third is Australian lamb chops wrapped in Moroccan mint tea, mint makes the meat sweeter, and the final dessert is white chocolate mousse, with dark chocolate and bitter lemon sauce to balance the sweetness, but the best thing is the addition of jasmine Earl Grey tea to the mousse to bring out another fragrance.

When I returned to my room, I found a small piece of freshly picked tea on my bed. Although there were other options to choose from, the next day was a tea meal, greeted by a sencha and lemongrass tea-flavored broth and duck breast topped with Ceylon black tea sauce.

Wake up in the morning to the aroma of tea brewed by the butler, follow Andrew to visit the tea factory ten minutes away from his residence, and listen to the story. There are still five meters away from the tea factory, and there is already a strong aroma of tea in the air. Pick the top bud from the tea tree next to it, with the leaves on both sides, which is what we call two leaves and one bud. Every morning, the tea picker will go up the mountain to pick these teas by hand, bring them back to the tea factory, and dry them after withering, rolling, fermentation, and drying......

The process of making Sri Lankan black tea is very similar to the steps of making black tea in China, except that Ceylon black tea is often shown as broken tea. After drying, the tea leaves also need to be sieved layer by layer to sieve out the grades of crushed leaves of different sizes.

After visiting the tea factory, we came to the tea tasting area. There are two kinds of teacups on the table, one is similar to a mug, but there is also an upside-down lid on the cup, and the lid is stuffed with all kinds of tea leaves that have been brewed, and the other teacup is slightly shorter, corresponding to the mug, and contains the corresponding deep and shallow tea soup.

Scooping a spoonful of tea into a cup and drinking it in one gulp is like taking a sip of spirits. Tea tasters believe that such a step is essential to allow the tea to fill the mouth quickly and give a first impression – which is often the most accurate.

Other tasting methods are somewhat similar to tasting kung fu tea, smelling the taste, taking small sips, letting the tea stay or roll in the mouth, and feeling its fragrance and taste.

Champagne grown in 6,000 feet of tea has a fresh taste and a long aftertaste like a babbling stream. It has aromas similar to vanilla and citrus, and the tea body is supple, with a slight spicy taste like the crispness that chalk gives to champagne......

According to the height of growth, Sri Lankan tea is divided into high, medium and low tea, the higher the altitude, the clearer and more transparent the tea body, the aroma is rich, the lower the altitude the more mellow the taste, but it is perfect for desserts such as Black Forest cakes.

Sri Lankan tea is especially rich in terrain on a small island, and the altitude and climate of each region are different, which gives birth to a very diverse variety of teas, which can be produced all year round.

However, few people use a rigorous system to study the origin, tea varieties, tea makers, and the weather at the time of picking, and use flowery words to describe its aroma, taste, and taste, and the products on the market rarely refine this diversity.

You have to know that any variable will make the tea taste different, and if it rained yesterday, the tea picked the next day will taste different from the sunny day, how wonderful it is.

In the basic classification method of Sri Lankan tea, there is also a distinction by production. Galle is also one of the six major tea regions, and the tea here has a strong taste and is very popular with Middle Easterners. However, most visitors order the famous black tea from Uva, a medium- to high-altitude region. The brown color is orange and red, the taste is pungent, revealing the aroma of mint and lily of the valley, bitter and sweet.

If you want to hunt for curiosity, you can order the white tea produced by Handunu Gouda Manor. Sri Lanka mainly produces black tea, but there are also some green and white teas.

The white tea produced here is called Yinzhen, which is very rare. Handunugouda Estate is half an hour's drive from Galle, and I happened to be visiting there that day. It is more of a botanical garden than a tea plantation, with rubber trees, cinnamon, pepper and tea leaves, and its owner, Maringahermanganaratne, is happy to take advantage of the symbiotic relationship between plants.

In Sri Lanka, it's easy to feel out of place. The 100-year-old kneader is still working, and the internal combustion engine more than half a century ago is still pulling the train over the mountains. Time here sometimes seems to stop, sometimes it is shocked.

In the 1950s, when the British began to develop Africa as a tea growing area, the demand for tea bags increased, and many Sri Lankan tea factories began to use CTC crushed tea technology, which shredded the tea directly after withering, so as to produce broken tea for tea bags faster.

Of course, there are also manufacturers who still adhere to the traditional rolling, but after rolling, they use another special machine to crush the tea to maintain the original flavor. Between sticking to traditional flavors and developing a more modern way of drinking tea, the taste of Sri Lankan tea is gradually moving towards a balance.