"Tea Madame?"

The other day in Pandalur we were given the VIP tour of the Carolyn Tea Factory. One of the benies of staying at the manager’s bungalow is getting a personal tour of the tea factory. Enjoy that cup of tea you drink because it has really gone through quite a journey before it crosses your lips.

The hills surrounding our bungalow are carpeted with row upon row of manicured tea plants; it feels like we are in the middle of a giant hedge maze. Photographing the women hand picking or shearing the tea is awe-inspiring. The tool used resembles a hedge clipper with an attached metal box. Somehow these skilled women manage to harvest only the top 3 leaves of new growth with these cumbersome looking tools. Unfortunately new power hedge clippers with large bags may replace this traditional method. Imagine the sound of a gas powered hedge trimmer combined with a leaf blower. Say goodbye to the serene idyllic hills of tea with colorful women quietly picking, and goodbye to their livelihood also as power tools are strictly men’s work.


Next, off to the factory it goes. Remember Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory? This is the tea version. It starts with the men loading a mechanized pulley system where the bags of tea disappear into the factory. Inside is where the magic happens before it comes out the other end in neat vacuum packed cubes of tea for export. Photography has been strictly prohibited in each of the factories we toured although we have managed to sneak in one shot.

Back to the magic, through a series of chutes, conveyor belts and large drums the tea is bounced, tumbled and then shredded by razor sharp slicing rollers. Even after seeing the same process 3 times I am still baffled. The tea kept disappearing from one conveyor belt to the next and then down a chute to the floor below. It changed from recognizable leaves to something resembling muddy paste and finally to varying degrees of fine brown grains of sand. In the end it is bounced through a series of screens to determine which grade it falls into, quite literally. After we finished our tour we shared a cup of tea with the assistant manager and learned that the tea is tasted for quality control ever hour! If the taste is bitter adjustments to the process can be made immediately.

The brewing process? It seems to vary according to personal taste and tea strength but the testing recipe went like this: Bring a pot of water a boil, turn the burner off, throw in the tea and let it steep for 3 minutes. Don’t forget the tea cozy. Strain and serve. Adding milk and sugar seems to be the proper way to drink tea but adding anything else is poo-pooed in this setting.

If you want the poo-pooed Marsala Chai try this:
Boil 1 cup water and add fresh ginger and/or cardamom and a pinch of black pepper. Add 1 cup milk bring back to boil and add 1 Tbsp tea and 1 Tbsp sugar. Stir and swirl back to boil for 2-3 minutes. Strain and serve.

Scheduling

In response to some of your queries about our upcoming adventures, here’s a little snapshot of our plans. After we leave our Tea Plantation Nirvana we will journey through Wayanad National Park. There we will most probably view virtually no wild animals due to poaching and their habitat being squeezed out by towns and farms that have electric fences that kill unlucky wild elephants. The environment however will still be beautiful and we might even see some wild jungle fowl. (aka chickens)

We then plan to venture up to Mysore and perhaps visit some coffee plantations in the surrounding area. We are in search of the illusive Nescafe tree; its fine brew is served everywhere. In our efforts to order real coffee we always ask if it is brewed or Nescafe. ‘Oh yes Madam, brew coffee, Not Nescafe.’ Only to finally discover that the terrible brewed coffee we’ve been drinking occasionally is really instant coffee with the brand name of Brue. Outsmarted again!

After Mysore we will travel to Chennai to the fateful Appollo Hospital to check it out and meet the famous Dr. Bose. If all goes according to plan we will confirm a surgery date one month hence for Janet’s hip. (Feb.5??)

Then we hop on the next train and travel south far and fast away from the hospital we want to ignore. Madurai is a fair distance, there we will view many famous temples and maybe even buy some souvenirs from India. By then we will surrender to the inevitable and venture back towards Chennai by way of the coast and the French colony in Pondicherry. ‘Oui,Oui Madam this is truly Espresso’. Will we fall for it again? Probably.

By that time we will have dragged our feet and Janet’s hip so long that she will be happy to enter the air conditioned hospital and be given lots of drugs. I on the other hand will be happy to be in the AC but will be in need of CPR from the anxiety attacks that will be hitting me. They might have to give me drugs too.

We will both survive and be happy to leave our luxury hospital homestay to recoup ….where? Will it be Bangkok? Will it be at the Tea Plantation Bungalow? (so far this gets my vote) Or will it be in some unknown but wonderful healing restful place? The universe will decide and so far she has been doing a good job as long as we leave it up to her. So stay tuned and we will all find out together.

The Honey Pot

We fell into the honey pot; well actually it’s a tea pot in the Nilgiri Hills and it all happened by chance. Through a series of new connections and new friends we are now enjoying a rare view of India. We had stopped in Coimbatore to meet a friends’ mother and brother and they arranged a homestay for us with a friend of theirs. The friend was having a going away party for another friend and they invited us to join the party. We had nothing else on our oh-so-busy (not) social schedule so we jumped at the chance to talk to new people and eat some ‘real’ Indian food. At the party we met Meenu and Mahesh and when we shared our travel plans they mentioned that they also had a homestay in the direction of our travel. A few weeks later we gave them a call on the off chance that they might have room available at their homestay over Christmas. Thanks to Santa or was it Krishna or maybe Buddha they did, so off we went to our holiday digs.

Since these people were now ‘friends’ we knew we’d have to stay at least one night no matter how much of a dive the place might be. We hoped our new home would be clean, have hot water (at some point in the day), not be too noisy and that it didn’t stink of mildew or odors best left unnamed. Our jaws dropped when we saw our home for the holidays. We are now staying in an old British era ‘bungalow’ atop a tea covered hill with sweeping 360 degree views of the Carolyn Tea Plantation. We couldn’t have asked for more.

We had no idea that our new friends were part of India’s elite. They don’t offer their homestay to anyone they don’t know or isn’t recommended by a friend. Not only do we have this beautifully landscaped three bedroom bungalow to ourselves it comes complete with a great cook and two house ‘boys’ (their term not mine) to anticipate our every need. On our first morning we heard tinkering in the early hours only to find hot tea waiting for us with no one in sight when we ventured out of the bedroom. The food has been the best we have tasted in all of India, bar none. The guys are teaching us Tamil (the language of Southeast India) while we help them with their English.

I think we are getting an inside snapshot of how the Indian aristocracy live or what it was like in the olden days of colonial India. I must admit it takes a bit of getting used to but we’re managing…. We’ve decided to stay here for the next week and we might even come back after my surgery while I heal. Anyone want to join us?….Seriously! We’d love to share.

Ho Ho Hope To Be With You Next Year

Luxury Cruising….. India Style

From the craziness of Rajasthan to the sublime of Kerala, it's almost hard to believe we're still in the same country. The Kerala back water area is calm, soothing and beautiful. Brilliant green rice paddies rimmed by water canals, coconut palms and colorful houses. Life here revolves around the water whether it is for transportation, tourism, fishing, flooding the rice paddies or even herding ducks.

At the start of this trip we would never have imagined that we would be cruising the back waters of Kerala on the deck our own private luxury rice barge. The barge comes complete with all meals, full body shower, an upper viewing deck, flat screen TV and four men to attend to our every need for the three days all for under $300.

In all honesty we probably should add a few caveats about our luxury cruise. Our motto in travel is to always expect the unexpected. Hence we have gotten pretty savvy about asking some critical questions before agreeing to any deal in India.

If we see hot and cold fixtures on the shower we must ask if the shower actually has hot water. Does it come in a bucket or does the shower valve work? ‘Oh yes Madam, hot water shower 24 hours.’ Does the crew speak English? Does the fan work? We always hope we've covered all the critical questions but not! Who would have thought to ask if there was enough water pressure to actually use the shower head let alone use the full body sprays? There is hot water 24 hours but we forgot to ask if it was available to us during those 24 hours. ‘No problem Madam, just wait 30 minutes, I will turn on’. We also forgot to ask if the light bulbs in the ceiling lights actually worked so we could read after dark. (How could we have forgotten?) The fan did work but only on high speed and high decibel. The flat screen TV was great if we wanted to watch a Hindi movie with no subtitles. Thankfully we were more interested in relishing the few moments of quiet listening to the frogs chirping in the rice paddies. And that beautiful upper deck for our viewing pleasure… well, who would have thought it ask if the staff would be napping up there during the day.

At this point we just laugh, it is India after all. Nothing is ever as it appears. What phased us in the beginning of our travels is now what we enjoy about our India adventure. We continue to let go of expectations and enjoy the unexpected.

Color Police

Cruising along in the lush green of tropical Kerala suddenly a day-glo orange house pokes me in the eye. Someone from the color police should issue a citation. I’m not quite sure why the houses here are so bright and the clothing colors are so subdued especially compared to those in Rajasthan but I’m not quite sure about a lot of things here in India so add this to the growing list.

Perhaps the vivid green is inspired by the brilliant green of the rice paddies but somehow it looses its eye calming effect when it is translated to adorning a house with the added charm of purple or orange trim. The houses with the brightest hue and the most contrast are the winners here. Needless to say this is yet another acquired taste that I have yet to acquired. One thing I do know is that tranquility in India is truly a state of mind because it sure isn’t available to any of my five senses.