The women of the hills who serve you tea

Sri Lanka has a crop that is essential to its economy, but those who pick it do so in extremely tough conditions

Wherever you go in Sri Lanka, coconuts seem to be ever present, but they are not the country's most lucrative crop; that crown belongs to tea.

I came to this realization as a bus took me and other reporters on a United Nations-organized trip deeper and deeper into the country's mountainous central highlands.