Karnataka was over and now was the time to cover the small part of Tamil Nadu included in my trip. From the dark green shade of Coffee Tree’s now I was walking into the Lighter Green shade of Tea Estates in Coonoor and Ooty. Though only two days were not enough but I wanted to count more from it.
Landed in Ooty, Evening time and the first thing the next day was to board the Toy Train from Ooty to Coonoor, only having a day and half to cover most of places of Ooty and Coonoor, now was the best time to gear up and keep moving. Early morning boarded the train from Ooty to Coonoor, just a hour long journey but the best of scenes and witnessing the gift of Britishers to India.
Car was booked and I handed down my short paper slip to my driver for the day and we were off to Sims Park of Coonoor. Driver had told us that if you want to buy Tea or any other oil , Coonoor is the best place to buy, infact you can buy from Tea Estate Showroom directly, they give much cheaper and the original one.
After a short visit to Sims Park, infact a very short visit I was out and was ready to leave for a tour to tea estate, but this showroom had something else to offer me, a blog for them is a must.
It was just a walk away from Sims Park, an authorised showroom of Tea and all type oils.
Straight away first thing they did was, Sir have tea, but which one would you like to have Masala Tea, ginger tea, chocolate tea, white tea, etc etc?. I think in a single line he had offered me some 7 – 8 types of tea, now what option I had. Well it would be fine if I try all, Ya Ya why not sir, they gave us Chocolate tea first and then another then another though all were just for taste, I didn’t wanted to hang myself so quantity was kept to minimum. Though in the end I had a full cup of Masala tea, trust me all were amazing.
Costliest of them being the White Tea, which is made from the top leaves of the plant and is sold at the rate of at least Rs 500 for 50 gm. He took us to the tea estate also which was just cross road away, and told us the procedure of selection leaves.
“Sir, Top most leaves are used in making white tea, which is hardly sold in India, Indians doesn’t have the taste bud for it. Then the second row of leaves is for Green Tea and the next row after that for Masala Tea.”
I bought some 2 kg of Masala Tea and 1 Kg of Green Tea, but the best part was yet to come, when he showed his variety of oils.
Now was his turn to sell some more products, and it was the variety of oils and Ayurvedic medicines he was having. Eucalyptus Oil, Gaul oil, clove oil etc etc. All were present there in all sizes of bottles and he started showing them to me and kept on tell their benefits.
Then he showed me Eucalyptus oil, and the presentation or you can say the demo to prove the purity of oil was something unique. He took the bottle and a small piece of clothe and dropped some drops of oil to it, I thought may be he would tell me to smell oil again, but why from clothe now he has been doing it directly from the bottle till now, but he had something else in mind.
He took a match stick, lit fire on it and showed it to the piece of cloth. The oil caught the fire,“Man I am not holding that cloth I don’t want Eucalyptus oil”, my instant reaction after seeing this demo. No no sir wait a while, he just folded the cloth and showed me again, now smell it sir.
Trust me not a single thread of cloth was burnt, I could feel a strong pungent smell of Eucalyptus oil. He said if this oil wouldn’t have been the original, the cloth would have caught the fire. If somebody has joint pains in your family then you must buy this, and this small bottle would last at least a year, you need to take only one drop at a time, he said. I bought one bottle for my father and mother.
I was still sipping my cup of tea, which they had made from the same packet which I bought just to prove that they are giving me the same tea which they gave me to taste. Now was the time to move ahead towards Dolphin nose, time was less and lot of places were yet to be covered.
