A slow day at Kodamanju
From bed tea to the evening fire: how most guests spend their first day.
How tea is grown on our estate
From the nursery to the plucking basket, and why the bushes are kept at waist height.
Tea is a tree that would grow to 15 m if left alone. On an estate it is pruned every few years to a flat table at about waist height, so pluckers can reach the young shoots.
Only the top two leaves and a bud are plucked. On our estate, pluckers go over each section every 8–10 days in the growing season. A skilled plucker picks about 30–40 kg of green leaf a day, which becomes about a quarter of that weight as made tea.
The silver oaks you see between the bushes are shade trees. They protect the tea from strong sun, hold the soil on the slopes and support pepper vines, which we harvest in January. Cardamom grows in the damp, shady valleys lower down.
Our leaf goes to a factory 4 km away, where it is withered, rolled, fermented and dried within a day. On the estate walk, Rajan shows you each stage in the field. If you want to see the factory, we can arrange a visit on weekday mornings.
