The Spice Mountains - Munnar

The Coffee Blossoms

Munnar is the goldmine of plantations. You name it and Munnar has it: tea, coffee, chocolate, cardamom, nutmeg, pepper and rubber.

The image above is that of a coffee plant. The blossoms resemble varieties of tulip or jasmine. the beans are shiny and cherry like, though hard. In this season, I could not find any beans.

Kanan-Devan Hill Plantations Munnar

The Kanan Devan tea estate belonged to the Tata group. The Tatas decided to hand over the controls to the workers. The Economic Times dated 13th October reports that the estate has made a profit of Rupees 410 million.

Kanan Devan has 13,000 workers who won 68% of the shares in the company. Tata holding is now reduced to 18%. The estate is now expanding to manage a tea estate in Ethiopia. No wonder
the Munnar Tea gardens have become a great success story.