When in Malaysia, one drinks Milo iced. Unfortunately. I say unfortunately because there is cacao in Malaysia, and great chocolate in Malaysia. But sipping it isn’t popular. They don’t know what they are missing. This meant that my trip to Malaysia was a mix of really amazing, single origin, locally sourced hot chocolates and Milo iced and not much in between.
While cacao does grow near Cameron Highlands, the thing to do is visit tea plantations, of which there are many, all stunning. Tea is not native to the region. It is the British colonists who, in the early 20th century, decided to cultivate it. They found the climate to be similar to India and Sri Lanka, with cool temperatures and acidic soil. We visited a few of the larger plantations, including Cameron Valley Tea House and the much busier BOH Tea Centre. While the cafe is calmer at Cameron Valley Tea House, BOH Tea Centre offers tours that show how the tea is picked and processed. Unfortunately known were on offer the day we visited, but I’d recommend sipping tea there instead if the tours are on offer.
The thing to do after walking amongst the tea plants is to sip and buy their tea on one the terraces with views of the fields.
I thought it would be a great idea to have a chocolate, made with locally grown cacao, mixed with the local tea, available to enjoy at the cafes attached to the different tea plantations. To sip this while taking in the views would be such a memorable moment. Obviously, I was living in a parallel universe where chocolate is also at the centre of everyone else’s minds. Since this wasn’t on offer, we created our own, mixing a bit of my tea into a bit of the kid’s hot Milo drink. I wouldn’t recommend doing this (but did look good for the photo, at least). It was pretty terrible. I admit that by this point in time I had consumed quite a lot of tea and that, just maybe, the caffeine, or even all the sugar in the condensed milk added to the tea, which I am not used to, had gone a little to my head. We put the drink aside, and whipped out my secret stash of Chocolate Concierge’s Malaysian chocolate using beans from the region which paired nicely with the rest of tea that I hadn’t messed up by mixing it with Milo. Perfect enough.
Verdict: Order the tea, bring your own chocolate, and enjoy the pairing with the view. For those looking for a cacao fix, the nearby Lata Iskandar waterfalls has a small fruit and vegetable market where you can buy fresh cacao pods (and they are delicious).
