Getting High On Tea In Kerala

More tea, sir?

Like so many good stories, this one starts with rum. It’s not easy to get rum in Kerala. They don’t sell it in restaurants or regular stores. You have to get it from the Kerala State Beverage Corporation which is an experience that involves rickshaws, metal bars, and something that is a healthy mix of shopping and rugby. It’s not practical or enjoyable but it did result in rum, which unlocked the best day that I had while travelling in India.

“Where did you guys get the rum?”

The question was asked by another guest staying at our guest house, one who had been lured to the roof by the sound of our music. It was an ordeal, we explained. One not worth repeating and so we offered him a glass of the rum that we had bravely acquired, despite him having nothing to offer in return. He was Swiss, or German, maybe Swiss-German, it’s hard to tell in that crazy part of the world, all I know is that he repaid our kindness with a kind of currency that was well worth its weight in rum.

Knowledge.

More specifically, a set of Google coordinates for a hike through the tea plantations of Munnar, high up in the hills of Kerala. It wasn’t an official hike. The coordinates had been passed to him by two Swedish girls who had received them from persons unknown. The way he described the adventure was so animated and full of life. He spoke of the rickshaw up into the mountains, the friendly locals, and meandering through endless fields of tea.

I thought it sounded fine, at best.

I mean, it’s tea, how interesting could it be?

That was until we began our twisting ascent into the hills of Munnar, climbing the spectacularly terrifying roads in a dodgy taxi in which the most well-built thing was our driver’s moustache. It took us up into the clouds and delivered us into the heart of an otherworldly landscape, one covered in these strange, green plants that to call a ‘tree’ would be generous. They were too short, too squat, stretching across the hills like the cracks in a dried-out riverbed.

I’d never seen a tea tree before. The only time I’d ever seen tea was in a bag which I put in a cup and would subsequently mix with milk, removing any connection between the substance I was drinking to the incredible vista that was in front of me. I’d wager that the vast majority of people who read this article have tea in their cupboard right now but couldn’t pick out a tea tree out of a lineup of trees and would have no idea that it came from places that were as stunning as this.

It wasn’t easy to convince our moustached taxi driver to drop us off at those coordinates. He was worried about us although why, I’ll never know. India and Indians were nothing but kind and welcoming the whole time we were in the country, save for a few stiff lips at immigration. He stroked his impressive moustache as he asked if we were absolutely positive we wanted him to leave us there, only to ask us one more time just to make sure.

We assured him it was fine and promised to meet him at another set of coordinates later that day, which we could supposedly reach by way of goat tracks and farmer’s paths according to our Swiss/German/Swiss-German friend. These paths weren’t written on any maps but then some of the best ones never are.

And so we set off into the plantations, moving slowly at first, our footsteps swallowed by the mist. Then there would be moments where the mist would part and reveal a whole landscape of tea fields and villages that were hidden beneath.

One thing that I never associated with India was chocolate. That was for the Dutch, the Swiss, and the Belgians, a kind of fancy European thing that was packaged in shiny wrappers and sold to me on my supermarket shelves. But all that chocolate has to come from somewhere, I suppose, and while the Europeans got theirs by pillaging West Africa, India was busy producing small batch quantities of some of the most incredible chocolate I’ve ever had in my life.

And of course, it would be rude of us to not at least try some of the tea we were surrounded by while we were up in those hills.

It was in a roadside shack where we sampled both, sitting on tiny stools and watching the man stretch chai by pouring it from great heights. The way he shifted it from one pot to the other with such accuracy was almost acrobatic. Much like the chocolate, the tea was incredible, and provided all the energy we needed to continue our climb through the mist and the hills, keeping us warm and smiling even when the landscape was hammered with rain and all we could do was laugh.

Maybe it was the altitude, maybe it was the tea, maybe I’m addicted to chocolate, but there was something about the day that made me feel like I was higher than even the most nefarious days of my misplaced youth. Walking through the tea fields was an intoxicant for the soul, the mere notion of which I would have laughed at not long ago. And yet, when I saw our moustached taxi driver waiting for us at the end of our journey and felt a pang of sadness, I knew as much to be true.

There was more rum that night. It had been bought preemptively to acclimatise with the world beneath the clouds, a kind of celebratory nod to the man who had brought us there. And yet, when it came time to crack it open and fill our cups, none of us could bring ourselves to do so.

Our cups were already full enough.