In a yard between two enormous tea-drying sheds, a number of dark-skinned women patiently sit, each accompanied by an unwieldy looking cloth sack.
From the start despite, or because of, the enormous cost, tea drinking spread rapidly among the wealthy.
01237 441369, doctonmill.co.uk The decor is retro 50s with black and white Hollywood framed photos and posters on the walls, period music is playing and there are enormous pots of tea with polka dot cups and saucers.
I drink an enormous amount of green tea before flights, or even in flight, if I can get it.
The sheikh received me on several occasions in his pale-green sitting room, where we were served tea and enormous lunches.
While classic African scenery might not conjure up images of tea, this enormous expanse of plantation stretches for some 60km across this corner of south-west Kenya.
Fruit, vegetable and fish stalls were jammed with customers, and young boys crisscrossed the area hawking hot tea from enormous swinging canisters.
The Pavilion was the site of high tea, actually an enormous dance party.
Sadly, and alarmingly, Darjeeling tea is under enormous pressures from climate change, unsympathetic agricultural practice (deforestation, mainly) and economics (the high cost of labour; the tea can only be picked by hand).
But no matter; allowing myself plenty of time to get lost, I'm soon heading towards the apartment where my grandfather lived out the final 25 years of his life under the watchful eye of Moscow – and where his widow Rufa is currently preparing an enormous spread for our afternoon tea.
