Tea and Rubber Plantations

Tea
The second day of our five day vacation in Kerala took us to the breathtakingly beautiful mountains. The climate, soil and rainfall are a perfect combination to grow tea. We saw acres and acres, or, as they say here, hectares, of tea. We were told Tata Tea has over 16,000 hectares of tea plants in the region around Munnar.

From observation and the help of our driver, we learned tea bushes are planted 1 to 1.5 meters apart to follow the natural contours of the landscape. Young plants are raised from cuttings. They are tended in special nursery beds until 12-15 months old and then planted in the tea gardens.

When the tea plant is allowed to grow wild it can grow 10 m high. To simplify cultivation and stimulate the production of leaf buds, they are regularly pruned and shaped into flat-topped bushes of about one meter in height. The tea leaves are hand plucked (video). The length of time needed for the plucked shoot to redevelop a new shoot ready for plucking varies according to the plucking system and the climatic conditions. Intervals of between seventy and ninety days are common.

To make one kg black tea, approx. 4 kg tea leaves are needed. One tea plant produces about 70 kg of tea leaves a year. In a warm climate the plant is plucked for the first time after four years and it will produce tea for at least 50 years. The average yield per acre in India is 450 kilograms, with many estates producing over 680 kilograms.

With our driver as a translator, we learned that the tea pickers (video) are paid 75 rupees for 15 kilos of tea leaves. The big bags they use hold about three kilos. Experienced pickers can pick 10 bags of tea leaves a day and earn 150 rupees, about $3.30. In order to do their work they have to tie heavy rubberized canvas sheets around themselves to keep from being torn to shreads by the pruned bushes.

Rubber
The road from Kochin to Munnar allowed us to pass through several rubber plantations. We stopped at the side of the road to get a closer look at the tapped trees. Our driver told us the trees must be cut every day during the tapping season. The fluid that drips from the cuttings is white, has an unpleasant odor, and feels like rubber when you rub it between your fingers. The fluid is heated and reduced by the growers, and the light brown product is hung out to dry on lines. From that point, it’s ready to go to a manufacturing plant.