Yong Teng Cafe - Pancakes

I like pancakes. And you could find some cafes here and there in Cameron Highlands serving them. Here's one bit of info that I found in The Star, pancakes from Yong Teng Cafe. Will try them out next if I ever go up Cameron Highlands. Looks reall yummy too!

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Yong Teng Cafe Pancakes

Stall No 4 at the Majlis Daerah stalls (diagonally opposite Bank Pertanian Malaysia), Tanah Rata. Open 8am-5pm.

Head to this stall for a quick meal, which is one of the cheapest places in Tanah Rata for a simple, hearty fare. The place is run by Teng See Poh and his wife, Yong Oi Kim, who are both hearing-impaired. Communication with the friendly couple isn't a problem, however, as diners are given a piece of paper to write their orders on. There is also a full-length menu with items listed in both Chinese and English, so just point to what you want.



The food is simple but well prepared, and the pancakes are particularly good. Fruit toppings such as banana or strawberry accompany the crepes, and for an additional 50 sen, you can have a scoop of ice-cream as well. The stall also serves nasi lemak, burgers, hot dogs, toast and half-boiled eggs.

Cameron Highlands Weather

For those who are wondering about Cameron Highlands weather around this year end, no need to wonder. Typically it is the year end monsoon season with wind blowing in from the North-East to South-West bringing along with it the moisture laden atmosphere from the sea. When the moisture laden warm air hits the cool climate of the mountain range in the central area of Peninsular Malaysia it would result in precipitation.

Most if not all would fall on the east coast states of Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, as well the southern state, the east coast of Johor and of course Singapore too. However it would be more severe in Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang because of the mountain ranges.

So expect to experience rain in Cameron Highlands from mild drizzle to heavy downpour during your trip. Carry your umbrella along, and try to factor in indoor activities rather than outdoor exploration activities. Avoid going for jungle bashing unless you are an intrepid outdoor adventurer who don't mind slushing through the jungle mud.

Visit to Bharat and Boh Tea Plantation is still alright but you might not be able to frolic in the tea plantation itself. Well, depends on your luck, I suppose. You could always visit the tea factory, heh, heh. Or just sit back and relax at the Boh Tea Centre or Bharat Shalimar Tea Shop and enjoy the grand view of rain pitter-patter on the tea plantation.

Visit to bee farm, butterfly farm, rose garden centres, cactus nurseries and various farms like strawberry farms, Kea farm, etc will depend on your fortune with sky as most of these Cameron Highlands sights and attractions are open air with some covering. You could carry your umbrella along, but if the rain gets too heavy it might be better to hold up somewhere like in a restaurant and have a nice hot cup of tea!

Related post:
Cameron Highlands Current Weather March 2010

Cameron Highlands Info

Goodness gracious! My website is just information and review about Cameron Highlands. I do not do hotel accommodation apartment bookings, I do not sell organic vegetable products, I do not provide travel and tours services, I do not sell flowers! My dear fellow netizens, I can't help you on the above because I don't do them!

Cheers!

Types of Tea

There is so many different types of tea and yet they all come from the same plant known as Camellia Sinensis, how the tea leaves are processed determines the type of tea.

The taste of the tea itself on the other hand is different story. It is determined by many factors. Like wine, it is influenced by the environmental conditions of the region in which it is grown, such as climate, soil and altitude. So an Oolong tea from say China will be very different from Oolong tea grown and processed in Japan or Taiwan. Likewise for English tasting black tea that are grown and processed in Sri Lanka will taste different from that of Cameron Highlands tea.

There are four major types of tea:

Black tea: The leaves are allowed to ferment fully before being dried. It has a robust and full-bodied flavour, and goes well with milk. Black tea is also known as Ceylon or English tea. Boh Tea is an example of black tea. Other popular kinds of black tea include Earl Grey, English Breakfast and Darjeeling.

Oolong: The tea is semi-fermented and rolled lightly until it turns red, then dried over a fire. After brewing, the tea is usually light brown-red in colour. It is usually drunk without milk or sugar. Most Chinese teas are Oolong teas. Shui Xian, Pouchong and Alishan are some well-known varieties of Oolong tea.

Green tea: This is unfermented tea which is withered, steamed, and then dried. It retains a distinctive green colour and has a delicate flavour with a slight tang. The most well-known form of green tea is Japanese tea. Gunpowder, Green Pekoe and Sencha are some of the popular varieties.

White tea: White tea comes from tightly rolled buds of tea. It does not go through any fermentation; instead, the leaves are immediately fired or steamed after withering. There is also no rolling involved. Types of white tea include Silver Needle, White Peony and Darjeeling White.

Sourced from www.boh.com.my and www.2basnob.com

Boh Tea Production Process

Here's some interesting information about Boh Tea production process. This will give you a fair idea of how Boh make their perfect savoring cup of tea for your enjoyment. I know, I love tea and nothing like a cup of English tea for a relaxing day!

Harvesting: Tea bushes are harvested approximately every three weeks. The leaves are packed into sacks and sent to the factory for processing.

Withering: The leaves are put in troughs or bins with warm dry air running through them for about 12 to 20 hours. This removes the moisture content from the leaves.

Rolling: This crushes the leaf cells while proccessing leaves into smaller particles. It also exposes the cells to oxygen.

Fermentation: Also known as oxidation, this is the critical stage that determines the flavour, aroma and colour of the tea. Therefore, timing, humidity and temperature have to be carefully controlled. After fermentation, the tea leaves turn copper in colour, and the characteristic aroma of tea develops.

Drying: A blast of hot air is passed through the leaves to stop the fermentation process. This is when the leaves emerge in their familiar, crisp, black, curled form.

Sorting: The off-grades, fibres and stalks are removed by running the tea through several machines. A vibroscreen is used to sort and grade the tea leaves according to size.

Tea tasting: The taster examines each sample of dry tea leaves for colour, texture, amount of twist and evenness of grade. The infused leaves are examined for colour, uniformity and brightness. Next, he tastes the tea for taste, flavour and aroma.

Packaging: The tea leaves are packaged and ready for the market.

Sourced from www.boh.com.my

Cameron Highlands Weather

Cameron Highlands weather is somewhat more wet this year. Seems like every trip I made to Cameron Highlands, I will experience rain. The last weekend trip was no different. Using my Casio watch which has a build in temperature meter, I noted that day time temperature was about 26°C while night time temperature was about 21°C. Gets kinda cold when it rains too.

This time round we stayed in Desa Anthurium with some friends for bridal photography. This Cameron Highlands apartment is located in a valley like area, thus there is less wind. My brother-in-law complaint that he felt very warm despite sleeping next to the window. Hmmm... It felt quite cool for me, perhaps a little cold. Perhaps he got more bodily fats could be factor, and of course without any night wind was another factor for him to feel warm.

Water disruption?

One of my readers mentioned that there will be water supply disruption around 12 July 2009. This was informed by the staff at Hotel Equatorial. However it was not clear whether the water disruption will only affect Equatorial Hotel or Cameron Highlands in general. It could be a schedule maintenance by the water works department. As I was informed sometime ago, the water shortage situation in Cameron Highlands has already been remedied. So very likely this water disruption could just be a schedule maintenance. So do check with your hotel accommodation about this matter before you book your room around that period.

Cheers!

Pereskia sacharosa / saecnarosa (Jarum Tujuh Bilah)

Pereskia sacharosa/saecnarosa (Jarum Tujuh Bilah)

Idil passed this info about this herbal plant that has medicinal properties. It is said to have the ability to cure cancer especially colon cancer, nose cancer and several other disease like high blood pressure and diabetes. It might help my brother-in-law who is now battling nasal cancer.

This Pereskia Sacharosa / Saecnarosa or in Malay Pokok Jarum Tujuh Bilah or Pokok Tujuh Jarum (Seven needles plant) from the family of Cactaceae is a cactus plant with leaves, probably not a common type of cactus plant as most of the cactus I have seen are without any leaf. This plant originally came from Korea but could be found in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia and can live in almost any type of condition except cold area. Hmm, that means it can't be grown in Cameron Highlands. However it grows better under the hot sun and in tropical climate. There is about 15-20 species of this plant found in South Africa, Middle of America and West India.

How's how it is taken:

There are three ways to prepare this herb:

1) You take 2 slices of Pereskia leaves and mix it with warm water, let it infuse for about 2 minutes and drink it as a tea.

2) You can eat it raw

3) You can juice it by blending several leaves of Pereskia.

After taking it, you are advised against taking any other types of drinks immediately as you would lose its potency. I should think you could drink some plain water to wash it down though. After all, the taste is bitter so it could be difficult to ingest it. However if it can cure, it could be use as part of your arsenal against cancer.

Source:
http://www.rcentre.utm.my/download_view.php?download=1983
http://herbs-database.blogspot.com/2007/11/pereskia-sacharosasaecnarosa-jarum.html

Hot, hot, hot

I really want to go back Cameron Highlands for a holiday. Especially to cool off! The weather down in the lowlands is really sweltering hot. The meteorological department recorded rising temperatures around the country. They measured a 35.6°C on the 8/May/2009 last Friday in Subang Jaya. In Pahang at Batu Embun it was 36.2°C. That's way too hot!

According to the meteorological dept, this hot spell would persist till September. I think I will melt by then. According to Chief Asst. Dir. Ahmad Zaki Mohd Saad said that this was a usual phenomenon in the country. He said April and May were the hottest months according to climatology studies. The change of wind direction during inter-monsoon season last month has caused the weather to be drier. And the South-West Monsoon from mid-May to September usually brought a dry spell.

I did see some dark clouds and flashes of lightning but no rain. A few constipated rain drops here and there, not even a light drizzle. It made my car dirtier as it mixed with the dust. I think this year's hot dry spell is really the hottest! Even at night with my air-con at 21°C it still felt warm! Perhaps got something to do with global warming. I hope it will rain soon, 'cause this heat is quite unbearable.

Refreshing Trip to Cameron Highlands

At first we wanted to head out to east coast and go visit the Terengganu sea beaches. However the weather in Kuala Lumpur was just way too hot for the past several weeks; so we decided to head to Cameron Highlands instead. So much for tourism Malaysia. The highlands is still fine by me. And this time, my parents-in-law, Kenny, Rebecca and Lindy was in tow too.

It was a big group and so Lena decided to book Greenhill Apartment, located next to Heritage Hotel in Tanah Rata. This booking was private and not done via RCI or Berjaya Leisure. It wasn't cheap either considering that we were going up on a superpeak weekend.

All in all, it was a refreshing trip. It rained while we were up there, and the average temp was about 23°C. Gerald of Father's Guesthouse said that this kind of weather was what it was like in the good old days when Cameron Highlands was really cold. Well the change in global weather pattern might have something to do about it, I guess.

Again I have amassed quite an assortment of material for updating my Cameron Highlands Destination web site. So now it is a matter of sorting through and making head and tails of the information to be properly posted for general public information. Yeah, yeah there were wrong assumptions made too, so that should teach me to be better travel writer. Can't just snap photos, and collect brochures. I have to interact with the owners and denizen there to get my facts right.

Well time to update the Cameron Highlands tourism Malaysia web site and make it the best ever!

Cheers!

Time to go Cameron Highlands soon

Lena decided it was time to take a break. And so this Labour Day long weekend seemed like a good opportunity to go Cameron Highlands to take a break, not only from the hotspell lately but also from work.

It was a hustle and bustle of activity as she went about to get the various food stuff ready. We are going to have a steamboat in Greenhill apartment which she managed to book. There also some special preparation as my brother-in-law was diagnose with cancer and he is going full out using complimentary / nutritional medicine way to combat cancer. It involves eating lots of vegetables, no meat, no sugar / carbohydrates, no salt, lots of supplements and anti-oxidants. Really blend food, but it seems to be the better alternate way than radio and chemotherapy.

As for the apartment rental, I hope to find out more from this lady who has various apartment under her care. Apparently this long weekend is rather peak, so I might not get a chance to view the various apartment she holds in her portfolio. Apartments in her care includes not only Greenhill Apartment but also Arabella, Desa Anthurium, Parkway, and various other. I wonder if she has any contact for bungalows...?

Cameron Highlands here I come again!

Yes, going to Cameron Highlands again. The weather down here in Kuala Lumpur is just way too hot. I think it has not rained for three weeks already. Perhaps global warming is taking its toll on good old Malaysia...

This time round, I don't expect any rain up there. So hopefully I could get some good photos of places to go and hopefully got chance to visit MARDI Agrotechnology Park.

Kenny and Rebecca is tagging along this time plus Lena's parents and Lindy too. Looks like the we going to kick up a cooking storm in Greenhill Apartment. Trust Lena to dig up accommodation contact. I will have to post that detail up too, still got info gap in my tourism travel destination web site...

They also want to go jungle trek. But I think we will end up with the easy to walk Parit Trail #4. Oh, well... one day I sign up with the travel agents up there and have a good look at smelly ol' Raflesia flower.