India 2007

Tea Gardens in south
Date: January 26th, 2007 Photos: 24

Tea baskets are often hung on a tree at the end of the day, ready for use in the morning.

Tea bundles Tea waiting to be picked up.

Cardamom Cardamom makes a good companion in the tea garden.

Tea with pepper and shade trees Tea grows well under the light shade and these trees are used for pepper plants to climb on.

Coffee drying Since tea gardens are at a high altitude and it does get cold at night, the coffee is collected and covered at night, to prevent moisture collecting.

Drying coffee Around 11 am the coffee is spread out to dry.

Tea flowers are not often seen, this shot is a little out of focus but gives you an idea what the flower looks like.

Naren & Gun With tea in the background

Chamraj Tea Factory Visiting Chamraj organic & fair trade certified tea garden

Solar panels The use of solar energy is effective and clean

Shade Tea is grown under light shade

Lady waiting The picked tea is collected for trucking to the factory twice a day.

Leaf Leaf of the shade tree silver oak

Naren in cardamom patch Here is Naren in the cardamom patch, opening a pod to taste.

pepper Pepper on the plant.

The tea in the gardens we visited was plucked by hand, a cycle of 8 days and the same bush can be harvested from again.

More tea picking

This tea is being picked with a small machine. The cycle to get back to the same bush for picking is one month since more is cut off the plant and it takes time to recover.

Robusta coffee plant POABS tea gardens also grows some coffee. Here is a robusta plant with coffee cherries.

Tea factory It is common to have a small tea factory with the tea growing around it.

Spraying conventional tea Here are some other men spraying for mites. Mites bothers tea when copper is applied. Organically grown tea has fewer problems, tea is a resilient bush but does not like cold.

We noticed this man spraying the conventionally grown tea. He is spraying pesticides for mites. Notice lack of protection.

Tea ready to be picked

Vanilla Vanilla grows well in the tea garden.