Touring the tea estates of Kerala

There’s nothing quite like touring the tea estates of Kerala.  On a poorly maintained dirt road through endless fields of  prime tea land, towards an isolated house perched high in the tropical hills, I arrived in Peermede.

With my guide, a tea-worker on the estate of my (uncle) in his 60s,  walked swiftly up  the steep inclines stopping in places to offer my fresh spices cut from the trees and plants.

The tea industry in Kerala is becoming increasingly difficult for the individual small business man. Because super corporations like the TATA group have taken control of thousands of acres of land and recruit the majority of laborers in an area, the little guy is left hard-pressed to profit.

But the suffering of the tea-estate owner is offset by the relative end of suffering of the laborers who  work the land.

My host, a family friend who spends half his year alone in an oversize house within his land,, shared with me some of the significant figures for labor in Kerala tea-estates:

Workers are(were) typically payed 150 INR / day for 8 hours work ($3.00) -this represents some of the lowest payed work in India today. Now, because of labor strikes, field workers work only 6 hours and are payed overtime for the extra two.  This still amounts to less  than the cost of a typical “cup of coffee” in Western countries,

Of course you can buy food in India for much cheaper, however this is still among the worst ways to work in the hot Indian summer.

The price of tea, however are not going up and new industries are being developed offering better work… Or at least less strenuous work.  90% of the tea workers I saw were woman.