The Last Two Gardens in Europe

On a green hillside above the northern coast, rows of clipped tea bushes ran downhill in long, tidy stripes toward the sea, almost as neat as if they had been drawn with a ruler. Polly landed on a low stone wall at the edge of the plantation and looked out over one of only two places left on the entire European continent where tea is still grown commercially, and the only one open to visitors.

Na zelenem pobočju nad severno obalo so se postriženi čajevci v dolgih, urejenih pasovih spuščali proti morju, skoraj tako natančno, kot bi jih narisali z ravnilom. Polly je pristala na nizkem kamnitem zidu na robu plantaže in gledala na enega od samo dveh krajev, ki so na vsej evropski celini ostali za komercialno pridelavo čaja, in edinega, ki je odprt za obiskovalce.

The plantation began in eighteen eighty-three, after a disease wiped out the oranges that used to be the island's main export. Looking for something else the volcanic soil could support, a local grower imported tea bushes along with English machinery built to process them, and both have stayed in near-continuous use ever since, making this the oldest working tea estate in Europe by a wide margin.

Plantaža Gorreana se je začela leta tisoč osemsto triinosemdeset, potem ko je bolezen uničila pomaranče, ki so bile prej glavni izvoz otoka. Ker je iskal nekaj drugega, kar bi vulkanska prst lahko preživljala, je domači pridelovalec uvozil čajevce skupaj z angleškimi stroji za predelavo, in oboje je v skoraj neprekinjeni rabi vse do danes, zaradi česar je to daleč najstarejše delujoče čajno posestvo v Evropi.

Inside the low factory building, iron machines more than a century old still roll, sort, and dry the leaves almost exactly as they did when they first arrived by ship. Workers still pick the newest growth by hand along the terraces, since the tender top leaves make the best tea, and nothing here is sprayed with pesticide or herbicide, a rule the growers have kept since the very beginning.

V nizki tovarniški stavbi železni stroji, stari več kot sto let, še vedno zvijajo, sortirajo in sušijo liste skoraj natanko tako, kot so takrat, ko so prispeli z ladjo. Delavci najmlajše poganjke še vedno nabirajo ročno po terasah, saj nežni vršički dajo najboljši čaj, in ničesar tukaj ne škropijo s pesticidi ali herbicidi, kar je pravilo, ki so se ga pridelovalci držali od vsega začetka.

Polly walked along one warm terrace, brushing against rows of glossy green leaves that smelled faintly of grass and rain. Somewhere down the slope, five generations of growers had kept this hillside exactly as it was meant to be, one careful harvest at a time.

Polly se je sprehodila po topli terasi in se podrgnila ob vrste svetlečih zelenih listov, ki so rahlo dišali po travi in dežju. Nekje niže po pobočju je pet generacij pridelovalcev ohranilo to zemljo točno takšno, kakršna naj bi bila, ena skrbna žetev za drugo.