January 15

This morning Jeff went out, bought us breakfast (carrot cake and chocolate muffin), and rented a scooter! Yea!! I had a bright pink helmet! So after we ate and it warmed up a bit, we set out.

First, we went to Govt. Botanical Garden, Munnar, which are still in the town. It was a lovely day, cool and a little overcast, which was to our advantage. The gardens were minimally terraced on the side of slight hill, and stopped at one of the rivers running through town. A broad promenade was lined by many varied-colored beds of dahlias with impatiens marching at their feet. There were also splashes of a vine with purple flowers for some contrast intermixed in the dahlias. Beautiful displays. There are signs about, 'Do not pluck the flowers'. I love it, made me chuckle. Anyway, they also had some beds of the biggest hydrangea blossoms. The beds were all laid out well with the path meandering down to the river, and back up. The garden had a children's play area. There was also a pretty realistic looking elephant that was animatronic -eyes, ears, and tail moved by a sensor as you neared it. They had different 'tent' rooms with displays of potted plants: one was orchids (these are always one of our favorites), one cactus, ect. Then we saw a flowering shrub – the flowers looked like Chinese lanterns -that was cool!  Also another unusual plant/shrub that had red caterpillar-like blooms mixed in the leaves at the end of the stems. There were some Oriental poppies (not California poppies) – they were red. The garden even had some 9 foot tall sunflowers. But the majority of blooms were those majestic dahlias. 

Next we cycled (or maybe “scooted”) to the Tea Museum. Jeff paid and we entered. The first room went into the timeline of tea plantations – “The first footprints on the Kanan Devan Hills.” 1790 was the first time a European is said to have visited the area. 1817 the British surveyed the area. 1877 a grant of the property is obtained from a local chief. Finally 1880 the first tea is planted, and the rest is history… so to speak. Then we went into room for a 30 minute video of the history. It passed from British Colonial – at least two different companies to an Indian company Tata, and now the area is owned and operated by locals, called Kanan Devan Hills Plantations Company Private Limited. Some of the people involved from picking to sorting to processing are third or fourth generation and part owners! Video over, we all from the video room move into a production room. A guy narrates the process. The he pulls Jeff and I out for a private narration. I don't know why we were chosen – there were other foreigners. Anyway, he said there are tea plants that are 1,000 years old, and the tea actually is a tree, but kept to shrub size for convenience of picking the newest leaves. During the good season the tea shrubs are picked over every seven days (This is the good season, so maybe we will see workers out picking.) Off season, the leaves are only picked every 15 days. Then it goes from picked tea leaves (Women are usually the pickers. They have a more delicate touch.), through a air blowing/ drying station. Next, different processing determines the type of tea. White and green teas are the most tender new leaves and are withered and lightly processed; whereas, black tea is the English breakfast teas, and then the “C.T.C.”, which is crush, tear, and curl. We saw the machine that does this processing. Then the wet macerated leaves go through a fermentation for 60 to 90 minutes, next a dryer, and then through an electrostatic station to remove stems or fibrous content (which becomes mulch). It was fascinating and educational, answered many of my questions! Then “our private guide” took us into the tasting area and ordered the  tea we selected for us. Jeff gave him a tip. (Maybe we look like the type that will tip, and this is why we were chosen(? I just had a bunch of questions answered, so only fitting I get a new one). Anyway, we went through their little shop, and found tea tree oil (we have been needing this!) We bought a bottle. Now we left the Tea Museum. We thoroughly enjoyed that museum!

We went back to our place, and had a light snack lunch. I caught up on blogging. Jeff planned and read. Then we went back out on the scooter. We rode quite a bit toward a beautiful cascading waterfall, well, as close as we dared get, which was still a ways off. Too bad, it was stunning. Next we backtracked to sunset point for sunset, but was not as good as last night. So back to our place and we parked the scooter, unloaded our stuff and walked – a whole 120 feet! – to Cafe Arabia. We had Chicken “Shavarma” – Jeff had it as a plate, me as a wrap. We also had Chili Gobi, which is battered, fried and seasoned cauliflower with spices and mixed in a glaze with green bell pepper, onion, and mild green chilies; and juices: one watermelon and one ginger lime. It was a great meal. It has been awhile since we have had any shawarma! 

Then returned to our place for the night, and finally got all caught up on blogging!