HOGA Gaharu Tea Valley In Gopeng – Hidden Attraction
Ipoh isn’t known for tea plantations. But HOGA Gaharu Tea Valley is one unique tea plantation that is less than a 30-minute drive from Ipoh.
Is this 300-acre plantation worth visiting? What can you do here besides look at trees?
Here’s the breakdown from a visitor’s perspective.
Highlights
1. Great Wall
This is the first thing you will see before you enter the plantation. It’s a grand archway and periphery wall that take inspiration from the Great Wall of China.
There’s some space to park your car to the side and take a quick photo if you come before others do.
2. Hilltop View (And Café)
If you go for the van tours (and we recommend that you do), the very first stop of the tour is this building.
It’s quite barren on the upper levels but the ground level is nicely furnished with a modern and spacious café that overlooks the valley.
Note: The café is only open on weekends
There is an informative video playing here as well as gallery walls that showcase the timeline of the plantation. Plus, the different parts of a gaharu or agarwood tree.
There is a balcony that is connected to the café, but the best views are one level above the café.
You can take the stairs all the way to the third level, but it is not well-maintained. The barriers at the top balcony are alarmingly low for children. Swiftlets have made their home in the roof of the top level.
3. Hugging Park
The next stop with the van tours is the hugging park. This attractive space has a lot of trees that you can walk under.
Steps make a neat pathway through the trees. Some of the trees are painted brightly with different animals.
This is the prettiest part of the 3 stops in our opinion. The landscaping is well maintained, and there’s even a huge water wheel over a large circular fishpond that is well-stocked with arowana and other fish.
There are tables under a wooden gazebo that look out over the pond and it’s a great place to relax if not for the lack of any refreshments available here.
4. Lovers Park
We remember that this section used to be much better cared for. Now the pond is overgrown with algae. There’s no fish to be seen, and there are many dead vines to be cleared.
The majestic 200-year-old trees are still alive. But if you’re trying to discern any shape of a couple dancing from them (as per the signage), it’s not very clear since the trees have been taken over by other plants.
To the side of these trees is a place to hang wooden locks of love. It’s not clear where to get more locks if you do wish to leave one.
If you walk around the pond, there are some stone statues of different zodiac animals to see.
5. Waterfall
Follow along the metal pathway from the big trees, and it eventually leads down to a waterfall. There’s a butterfly cave along the way but we didn’t see any butterflies inside.
The waterfall looks to be manmade, and you can’t get down to touch the water. It’s just nice to look at.
There are also murals and statues of elephants here. They might seem randomly placed but for some context, there’s a century old pipeline that Gopeng is proud of. And back then, elephants were involved in the construction.
The murals and the elephant statues are homage to Gopeng’s tin mining industry where water was a key instrument in the tin mining process. The pipelines were necessary to bring water over to the tin mining sites.
When you reach the end of the metal walkway, you’ll find you are only a short walk away from the visitor car park.
Stick around the small garden here for a while and you might see a lot of Raja Brooke butterflies.
6. Time Tunnel
You don’t need to pay additional fees or join a tour to check out the Time Tunnel. This is an indoor exhibition gallery next to the gift shop.
It’s fully air-conditioned and you can take your time to read about how a special medicinal gaharu formula was discovered by an emperor’s imperial doctors. The story is quite interesting, and we won’t spoil it for you here, but eventually the formula made its way to the owner of HOGA (David Ho) from a Japanese man.
His own story is in the next room of the exhibition hall so don’t miss out on it. It tells of the special conditions he needed to follow to start this tea plantation and gain the trust of the Japanese man who would eventually hand over the formula.
If you want to follow along with how the tea estate grew from the original 200 saplings to the current 200,000 trees, there’s a full timeline at the Hilltop View Café (1st stop of the van tour).
7. HOGA Deli
There’s quite a lot for sale at the deli counter outside the gift shop. Including options for lunch but we did not stay here for lunch.
Our favorite thing on their menu is the HOGA tea soft serve ice cream! It’s creamy, delicately sweet and the tea flavor is mild, but present.
There’s also a choice of having your ice cream with waffles or in a bun.
You can choose to sit in front of the deli or walk across to the larger seating area.
8. Gift Shop
The on-site gift shop is spacious and air-conditioned. They have all sorts of in-house products made with gaharu.
Such as instant tea and coffee mixes, dried noodles, nougats, body lotion, lip balms, etc. There is even marinade for meat and ready chicken stew soup bases.
At the center of the gift shop is a circular counter where you can try two types of tea. And by this counter, is a fridge where they keep gaharu kombucha too. Unfortunately, you don’t get to sample this drink.
Entry Rates
There are no entrance fees imposed for entering the grounds of or visiting the main building.
The visitor car park is free of charge too.
What you do have to pay for are the optional tours by staff members acting as guides. They use air-conditioned vans to take visitors around the plantations where there are 3 different stops.
There’s no fixed timing for the tours – the vans come and go quite often. You can take any of them to the next stop and back to the visitor center depending on how long you take to explore each stop.
Facilities
The visitor building is sheltered and wide. Wheelchairs can easily access this building since there are hardly any stairs.
Besides the ticket counter and waiting lounge (for the van tours), there’s an informative indoor gallery, toilets, a small café and a gift shop.
There is one other café inside the tea estate (stop 1 if you take the van tour) but it’s only open on Saturdays and Sundays.
The visitor car park is in front of the main building and is open-air with gravel and grass. There are very few visitors parked if you come before 10am.
How To Get Here
There may be vans to take visitors around the tea estate but if you want to get to HOGA Gaharu Tea Valley from Ipoh, you’ll likely have to drive here.
The road in is not suitable for large vehicles like full-sized tourist buses.
If you don’t have your own car, you can book a private tour with Explore Ipoh. Our Ipoh day tours include comfortable transport, as well as pick-up and drop-off in Ipoh (within the same day). And we’re very flexible with the itinerary.
We do recommend combining a visit to the agarwood tea estate with a visit to Gua Tempurung though. Since they are within 20 minutes’ drive of each other.
Find out more on our WhatsApp.
Conclusion
There’s no other place like HOGA Gaharu Tea Valley in Ipoh. The scenic tea plantation is beautiful and well managed with many visitor facilities.
But since there is not much to do besides taking photos, we would not recommend going out of your way to see it unless you are planning on exploring other places close to Gopeng.
Kellie’s Castle
Kellie’s Castle is 20 minutes’ drive from HOGA Gaharu Tea Valley. The historical building is a completely different type of attraction from the large tea plantation. Visiting either of these places requires you to drive out of Ipoh through Batu Gajah.
Other Ipoh Attractions
There are other places that might interest you in Ipoh. Such as museums on Ipoh’s tin mining heritage, scenic local parks or impressive cave temples. You can even visit a pomelo plantation.
