STiR coffee and tea magazine

32 STiR coffee and tea | 2023 Issue 1 (February / March) O by Aravinda Anantharaman f India's three best-known tea origins, Nilgiris gets less attention than its northern rivals Assam and Darjeeling. And it struggles with many challenges. Yet producers in the lush Nilgiris Hills, and the tea they grow, have their own virtues and strengths. Chief among the assets is deep roots and a long history, which dates to the begin- nings of India's large-scale tea industry. In the first half of the nineteenth century, when Nilgiris was popular as a summer retreat for colonial British officers, the region became a site for experimental tea farming. A planter named Henry Mann sourced tea seeds for chinary bushes from the Scottish botanist Robert Fortune, who smuggled tea saplings from China. Mann planted them on his farm, Coonoor Tea Estate, established in 1854 and considered the first tea plantation in these hills. In 1859, Thiashola Tea Estate was planted, initially worked by 556 Chinese pris- oners of war brought from Singapore and the Straits after the Opium War between Britain and China. The estate continues to produce fine orthodox tea to this day. Among Nilgiris's other early estates is Dunsandle Tea Estate, now owned by the Bombay Burmah Trading Company, which was planted around the same time. By the end of the 19th century, 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) in the Nilgiris were under tea cultivation, producing leaf that found favor with London brokers. The Nilgiris Hills are part of the Western Ghats, a mountain range that runs along the western edge of the south Indian peninsula straddling the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala. The biodiverse region is covered in tropical montane forests and grasslands that teem with myriad species of flora and fauna. Its high elevation Indian Origin Update: Teas of Nilgiris The Nilgiris Hills produce some of India's best teas. But a legacy of mass production of CTC in the 1980s has held the sector back. Estates and small farms in the Nigiris Hills produce about 13% of India's annual tea crop, mostly from chinary varietals. The leaf makes for a light cup that excels in blends, RTD, and iced tea. High-grown Nilgiris black is brisk, bright, and slightly spicy. Padmanabhan Subramanian, who set up the Knowledge Sharing and Caring support network for Nilgiris growers, joins visitors at a farm run by Prabhu Nanjan, who produces green, white, oolong, Puer, and other specialty teas. Courtesy: Padmanabhan Subramanian

• Cover