Munnar Tea Museum

Munnar, a small hill station in Kerala, is famous for its tea estates, which are a treat to watch. Paying a visit to the famous Munnar Tea Museum completes the visit to this hill station. The museum showcases and highlights some of the finest and enthralling aspects of tea production. It also displays the gradual advancement that took place during the slow evolution and growth of tea plantations in this part of Kerala. Tata Tea, which is a major producer of packaged tea in India, inaugurated the tea museum at Munnar, to keep intact the history of tea plantation in India. Munnar Tea Museum displays a number of photographs, curios and machineries used for the production of tea. Each artifact is a piece of art and signifies a turning point in the affluence of tea industry in Munnar. The museum is set up at Nallathanni Estate of Tata Tea, in Munnar. It is a long awaited tribute to the toils and rigors of the pioneers and leaders in this field, who worked out their sweat and blood to make this industry thrive.

Munnar Tea Museum stands as an effort to acknowledge the hard labor of the futurists who showed great willpower to transform Munnar into a major tea plantation center of Kerala. The tea museum at Munnar carefully outlines the development of Munnar tea estates, which is veritably conveyed through some of the displays that include the elementary tea roller to the modern fully automated tea factory. These machineries invariably pull a contrast and hence display various stages of tea processing which can be learnt from here. One can also learn about the production of black tea, from the exhibits here. A sundial placed on a granite block is an odd artifact, which sits in the tranquilities of the museum compound and welcomes every guest in the museum. The artifact was crafted in the year 1913 by Art Industrial School at Nazareth, Tamil Nadu. It symbolizes the growth and prosperity which the Munnar tea estates have achieved with the passing time.

Munnar Tea Museum stores an array of exotic artifacts, which cannot be found at any other museum, anywhere in the world. Some of these exclusive items on display at the museum are the 'Pelton Wheel' used in the power generation plant in the 1920s, the original tea roller (used in 1905), and a rail engine wheel of the Kundale Valley Light Railway that shuttled men and material between Munnar. A section of the tea museum also houses classic bungalow furniture, iron oven, wooden bathtub, magneto phone, typewriters, manual calculators etc. which are the legacies of the yester years. Tea tasting is done at the demonstration room, which is every tea lover's delight. One can taste the exotic flavors from all across the world. Those who want to get into the nitty-gritty of Tea production can learn a lot at the CTC and orthodox tea manufacturing unit at the museum.