Of Birds and Tea

• 21 February 2026
• india

There are a few more birds you need to see, and then we'll spill the tea. Or drink it at one of National Geographic's best tea spots in the world.

Indian Hornbill

Fun fact: not a bird. Leopard paw prints on the road by our lodge

A gray heron on the skyline

Okay enough birds (said no one, ever). Our next stop was in Coonoor, in the mountains. The British were weak and white like yours truly and couldn't handle the Indian heat. So they built up some ridiculous hill towns at about 1800m or 6000ft. We stayed in the lower-key city of Coonoor, next to the "Queen of the Hill Towns" Ooty, and took the UNESCO train between the two. I will not even get into the process of trying to book train tickets online in India (suffice it to say Sarah heard from someone whose entire family uses one login because nobody else has been able to create their own). So "low-key" city here means the population is only somewhere around 40,000 people. But the region is home to some of the best tea plantations in the world, thanks to the climate.

Tea bushes, which would grow into trees if not shrubberized

Roadside flowers

So as you can see it's a gorgeous place, and we stayed at a wonderful homestay a little outside the city with views over the tea fields.

Also we found monkeys. Like monkeys everywhere. Many monkeys were carrying babies as well. To the locals I'm sure they're mostly a nuisance, but to a person that did not grow up surrounded by monkeys, I couldn't stop watching them.

Roadside monkeys

Jungle monkey (look around the center)

Coonoor

Coonoor, an aptly named "hill town"

So while researching the area before arriving in India, I somehow randomly stumbled on a tea plantation called Tranquilitea. And apparently it's a premier, picked-by-hand tea producer. While we had no interest in paying the nightly rate to stay on the plantation, I did sign us up months in advance for a 90 minute tea tasting. When in Rome!

Well I got a pin on google maps, and we followed a private road past construction and fancy estates and arrived at the end of the road at another mansion. It was obviously lived in, and definitely did not look like the kind of place that we were supposed to wander into unannounced. There were no signs anywhere. So either this placed was ridiculously exclusive, or we were at the wrong place.

We waited around for a few minutes, then started poking around toward the front door to just ask, and lo and behold, we were in the right spot! One of the first questions was "how much do you know abou tea?" and at that point the answer was "almost nothing." Fortunately our host was a true tea nerd and I think he took some small delight in enlightening yet another couple about the world of high end tea.

The tea to be tasted. Mostly estate grown, hand-rolled teas.

So apparently the vast majority of all teas come from either the Indian or Chinese tea plant. As in, 99.99999% of the worlds tea supply. Even more surprising was learning that all types of tea (sans added flavors and spices of course) come from either one of these bushes. That means your black tea, oolong tea, green tea, etc. all share the same tea leaves. The difference comes down to when they are picked and how they are processed.

And tea should be brewed for about 3 minutes in 80c water. So it's more like drinking warm, flavored water. Which I will admit was a revelation to me.

The tranquilitea plantation

As always, there is much to do and see. As I write this we just got done with another food tour and watched an Indian classical dance show. And I am still so full I can't sleep, even though it's hours past my bedtime. So goodnight all!

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