Choui Fong Tea Plantation

Choui Fong has grown tea in these hills since 1977 and works around a thousand rai across several plots in Mae Chan district, producing green and oolong tea for the Thai market. The terraces are the draw: rows of clipped bushes following the contours in stripes down and around the slopes, which photograph well and have made the plantation a fixture of the Chiang Rai circuit. What sits on top of that is a cafe and shop designed by a Thai architecture practice, a low timber building on stilts projecting over the field with a terrace looking straight down the rows, serving tea, green tea cake and food. Tastings and a shop sell the estate's teas. It is free to walk the marked paths through the terraces. Picking happens through much of the year and pickers work the rows early. It is busiest at weekends and the cafe queues.

What you actually see

• The contour terraces - clipped rows following the slopes in stripes.
• The cafe on stilts - the timber building projecting over the field.
• The picking - workers on the rows early in the day through much of the year.
• The tastings - the estate's green and oolong teas, sold on site.

When to go

November to February for the weather and the clearest light; avoid March and April when burning-season haze covers the region. Mornings for the pickers and before the cafe fills.

Honest expectations

The cafe queues at weekends and is the main draw for most visitors. It is a working plantation - stay on the marked paths through the rows. Burning-season haze from March to April removes the view.

Nearby

Singha Park is south; Doi Mae Salong and Doi Tung are north-west.