The only tea plantation in Europe that still produces tea commercially, set on green hillsides ten kilometres east of Ribeira Grande along the north-coast road. The estate is open daily, free to wander, and the factory tour walks you through the original nineteenth-century machinery — the rolling tables and the wood-fired dryers — that still process the leaves picked from the surrounding fields.
The shop sells the estate's green and black teas at reasonable prices, and the café upstairs gives you a free cup with a view over the fields and the Atlantic beyond. Combine it with a stop at the smaller Porto Formoso tea factory a few kilometres further along the coast for a half-day out of town.