Munnar - Tea

Thursday, 25 September 2014

Tea is the major commercial interest in Munnar. The tea plantations are green and vast.

Acres and acres of tea. The trees are planted in the middle of the tea to help break up the wind.

We did not see any wild elephants, but they are fairly common visitors to the tea plantations.

New leaves must be sheared from the plants about every 15 days. It's all done by hand.

The clipping is done with a special set of shears with an attached basket to collect the leaves. The leaves are then transferred to a larger bag that is returned to a collection point when full.

Tea sacks are carried on the head from the plant to the collection site. A bag weighs up to 20 kg (45 lb).

Each bag is weighed (at left) and stacked on the truck (at right).

This tripod is holding up a scale. The bags are placed on the scale's hook to get weighed. Evry woman has an ID card and the amount is recorded so that everyone gets proper credit for the amount of tea picked.

The tea workers have permanent housing on the plantation. While this might look primitive to American eyes, it's actually quite good by Indian standards, especially for rural India.

A small temple near the living quarters.

The Tea Museum in Munnar has lots of interesting artifacts, as well as a demonstration processing plant and a sales shop for local tea, cocoa, and spices.

Tea processing has several steps: wilting; cutting; oxidizing, drying, and grading. Variations in cutting and oxidizing give the difference between green, black, and white teas.

Tea is processed daily. The first step is to "wilt" the leaves for about 12 hours in large trays.

Oxidized tea is on the left, raw tea is on the right.