Taste tea from the oldest plantation still working in Europe

Gorreana is a tea plantation on the north coast of São Miguel, its rows running down the slope toward the sea. Nobody expects tea in Europe at all, and this is the oldest plantation on the continent still at it.

It started with two men from Macau. In 1878 the island sent for a tea specialist, Lau-a-Pan, and his interpreter, Lau-a-Teng, to teach São Miguel how it was done. In 1883 the first kilo of dried tea came off the slopes at Gorreana, and the plantation has been making tea ever since.

The visit is free and so is the tasting. The factory still runs on its nineteenth-century machinery, and from April to September the rows outside are being picked.