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Tree · Camellia sinensis
Tea
A planted crop rather than native Western Ghats vegetation, yet in tea country it shapes every view.
How to recognise it
Left alone, tea is a tree; the waist-high tabletop surface is the result of constant plucking. The rows follow the contour of the slope, which is why the hillsides look combed.
Where to see it
Munnar
J.D. Munro leased the Kannan Devan Hills in 1877, and the planters first tried coffee, cardamom, cinchona and sisal before tea proved suited to the altitude; the first tea went in at Parvathy, now Seven Mallay estate, on about 50 acres in 1880. Today it shapes every view around Munnar. The grassland and shola that the tea replaced is the habitat the endemic birds and the kurinji need.
Tea Plantations · Letchmi Hills · Echo Point