AROUND THE WORLD in 23 YEARS

Think about that, a magic carpet ride from one end of the earth to another.

I was fortunate enough to do it, albeit my journey took 23 years not 80 days.

My magic carpet was Air Emirates, one of the world's premier carpets that connected me to places that I had only read about in National Geographic.

My journey began in 1997 in Sri Lanka, aka Celon, the tea-growing capital of the world. It was here in the late 1800s that Sir Thomas Lipton acquired his first tea plantation and the ubiquitous Lipton Tea Bag was born.

I had the unique experience of spending a night at the original Lipton Plantation processing facility that had been converted to an Inn.

They still process tea leaves there converting the green leaves into rich black tea.

"The orthodox tea-making method is the most commonly used. In this process, the tea leaves go through four stages: withering, rolling, oxidation and drying"

Think about it, how many people on earth have the opportunity to travel anywhere, much less to exotic locals where people and process combine to change the world. Thomas Lipton did just that, he did not invent tea-bags, but he did recognize that packaging was the way to introduce tea drinking to the mass market.

This is the beginning of my trip around the world, I will continue the journey on my blog, one exciting, exotic, and sometimes dangerous experience after another.

Stay tuned.

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