The tea garden at Shinkiari, just south of Mansehra on the Karakoram Highway, is Pakistan's first and largest working tea plantation, run as a government research station rather than a commercial tourist estate. It is a genuinely unusual sight in Hazara: rows of tea bushes on 30 acres of hillside, in a country that grows almost none of the tea it drinks.
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Name | National Tea & High Value Crops Research Institute (NTHRI) |
| Location | Shinkiari, Mansehra district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa |
| Established | 1986 as a research station; became an institute in 1996 |
| Total area | 50 acres (about 30 acres of tea garden, 12 acres nursery) |
| Run by | Pakistan Agricultural Research Council |
| Entry | Visitors allowed; no formal tourist infrastructure |
Why there is a tea garden in Hazara
Pakistan imports almost all the tea it drinks, at a cost that runs into hundreds of millions of dollars a year, so successive governments have tried to establish a domestic tea industry. Shinkiari's cool, wet hill climate turned out to be one of the few places in the country where the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, would grow well, and a National Tea Research Station was set up here in 1986 on 50 acres of land. It was upgraded to full institute status in 1996 and renamed the National Tea and High Value Crops Research Institute (NTHRI) in 2013, when its work expanded beyond tea to other high-value crops.
Researchers here have worked with around a dozen tea varieties, testing them for yield and quality under local conditions, and the estate produces both black and green tea. It remains, by a wide margin, the country's most established site for growing tea rather than importing it.
What you actually see
This is a research institute with a tea garden attached, not a plantation built for visitors, so temper your expectations accordingly. What is there: neat rows of tea bushes climbing a hillside, a nursery area where young plants are raised, and processing buildings where the leaf is dried and prepared. Staff and researchers are usually around, and the site has had a steady stream of visiting agricultural experts from Pakistan and abroad over the years, alongside curious travellers passing on the Karakoram Highway.
There is no ticket booth, published opening hours or shop at the gate that we could verify, so the practical approach is to arrive during normal working hours on a weekday and ask at the entrance whether a walk around the garden is possible that day. Don't expect a tea-tasting counter or a gift shop; this is a working agricultural station, and access can vary with what is happening on site.
When to go
Tea bushes are evergreen, so the garden has something to see year-round, but it looks its best when new growth is coming through after the winter, roughly spring into early summer, and again after the monsoon rains green everything up. Avoid the depths of winter if you want the garden at its fullest, though the site itself stays open.
Getting there
Shinkiari sits directly on the Karakoram Highway between Abbottabad and Mansehra, making the tea garden an easy stop if you are already driving north towards Naran, Kaghan or further into Gilgit-Baltistan. It works well paired with a stop at Mansehra town, and if you want a fuller day around the district, our guide to places to visit in Mansehra covers the rest of the area.
Is it worth the stop?
If you are already driving the Karakoram Highway through Hazara, yes, as a short and slightly surprising diversion: tea growing on Pakistani soil is rare enough to be worth ten or fifteen minutes. It is not, on its own, worth a special trip from Abbottabad or Islamabad, since there is no polished visitor experience here, and a bad day for access means you may only see the garden from the road.
Frequently asked questions
Is Shinkiari tea garden open to the public?
Visitors are generally allowed to see the garden, but it is a research institute rather than a tourist attraction, with no fixed public opening hours or ticket system that we could confirm. Ask at the gate on the day.
Is there an entry fee?
We found no evidence of a standard entry fee. Treat it as a working government facility rather than a paid attraction.
Where is the tea garden located?
In Shinkiari, on the Karakoram Highway in Mansehra district, between Abbottabad and Mansehra town.
Can you buy tea grown at Shinkiari?
The institute's focus is research and development rather than retail sale, and we could not verify an on-site shop. Don't plan a visit around buying tea here.
Does Pakistan actually produce much of its own tea?
Very little, despite decades of research at sites like Shinkiari. Pakistan still imports the large majority of the tea it consumes, though the government continues to expand trial plantations in Mansehra and Swat.
