How a 4th-Generation Planter in Coonoor Is Preserving Nilgiri Tea & Giving It Global Identity

The lives we lead today are a blur of deadlines, meetings, and endless notifications — all set against the drone of traffic and construction. Yet somewhere beyond the noise, a different rhythm plays. It winds through quiet forests and mist-wrapped hills, where the air smells faintly of rain and tea leaves whisper in the breeze.

For many in the Nilgiris, that pause arrives each afternoon — at 4 o’clock — when time itself seems to steep and settle. In homes and gardens, hands reach for kettles, and calm begins to pour, one cup at a time.

“Tea is a very special beverage for us here in the Nilgiris,” says Sandeep Subramani, a fourth-generation tea planter carrying forward his family’s century-old legacy. “People across the district stop for at least half an hour, typically around 4 pm, and gather to have a cup. The process of tea brewing can be meditative and calming when you take your time through the process of weighing the tea and getting the water to the right temperature before brewing it.”

For Sandeep, tea is more than a drink — it’s a way of life he’s determined to share with the world.

Coonoor: A childhood steeped in tea and community

Sandeep was born, brought up, and educated in the Nilgiris district, which houses a small municipal town of Coonoor, with a population of less than 50,000. The Nilgiris region is at an elevation of 900 to 2,600 metres above sea level, and Coonoor is a charming town that feels like it never left the slow lane.

Apart from a short time away to do his degree in hospitality management in Switzerland, the rest of his education was also completely there. “The fact that I graduated in hospitality meant that I could use what I had learnt to develop another vertical in our family business, here in the Nilgiris, the place I love,” he says.

His business is his way of giving back to the land where he grew up — by putting Nilgiri tea on the global stage. “My wife recently read a quote that said we need to give our children wings to fly wherever they want to and roots strong enough to come back to. I think this quote is true for me.”

How is Nilgiri tea different from Darjeeling or Assam tea?

While Darjeeling and Assam teas are globally celebrated, Nilgiri tea — though prized by connoisseurs for its rich flavour — has yet to reach the masses.

“Darjeeling was positioned as a premium beverage early on by the British, while Assam’s sheer production scale made it a household name. In contrast, the Nilgiris relied for the longest time on the erstwhile USSR market, with most of our teas exported there. But when the USSR collapsed, we suddenly found ourselves without a market,” adds Sandeep.

But the Nilgiris is home to some of the highest tea estates in the world, giving its teas a naturally complex profile. Elevation plays a vital role — the higher the estate, the richer the taste.

“Add to that the dramatic climate shifts — a swing from -8°C at night to 21°C by morning — and you get flavour notes that are truly unmatched,” Sandeep beams.

“While that’s an extreme example from one particular year, most other tea-growing regions don’t experience such drastic temperature variations between day and night. It’s this unique climate that gives Nilgiri tea its truly magical flavour, unlike any other in the world.”

A legacy rooted in the Nilgiris — A heritage brewed by generation

But the story of Sandeep’s estate and Nilgiri Tea doesn’t start with him. It begins with his grandfather, Rajubettan — known lovingly as the father figure of the small tea growers of the Nilgiris — who pioneered the region’s first “bought leaf” factory; one that didn’t depend on its own estate but supported the community around it.

Sandeep speaks fondly of his grandfather, who started with just a grocery store but slowly ventured into tea by converting a part of his farmland.

“Each day, he would harvest leaves and carry them to a nearby factory, only to be turned away when they were already full. After one too many wasted trips, he had a simple but transformative idea: What if there was a factory that didn’t necessarily buy leaves from his own estate but from estates that surrounded his factory?” 

That idea opened the doors of tea cultivation to anyone with a small patch of land and a big dream. Even today, over 70% of estates in the Nilgiris are owned by small growers, each with less than 10 hectares under tea.

“In most other tea-growing districts, it tends to be only large estate owners who hold hundreds and thousands of acres. Today, there are over 150 bought leaf factories in the Nilgiris,” Sandeep adds with pride.

Small farms shaping a global brew

There are three models in the Nilgiris for small farmers.

Sandeep explains, “The most popular of these is called the ‘bought leaf’ model that my grandfather pioneered. This model ensures that anyone interested in growing tea can do so without worrying about the huge costs involved in setting up a production facility. This truly enabled the proliferation of the small tea grower moment in the Nilgiris,” he shares.

There is also a cooperative model where the growers are also stakeholders in the factory that produces the tea. He adds, “The most popular of these is the Government-supported ‘INDCOSERVE’. In recent years, some small farmers have started their own micro-factories that produce tea from their own estates, which may be just a few acres in size.” 

Tranquilitea — Gourmet Nilgiri teas and boutique experiential hotels

After completing his hospitality degree, when Sandeep returned home, he founded Tranquilitea — Gourmet Nilgiri Teas & Boutique Experiential Hotels.

Realising most visitors only knew milk-and-sugar chai, he designed a gourmet experience to showcase the nuanced world of single-origin, high-elevation teas. Their boutique experiential stays are repurposed bungalows where guests can experience the plantation life in person, thus avoiding building new structures and putting any additional strain on the ecosystem.

What began as a hobby has since grown into a daily ritual for travellers from across the globe. Over the last 20 years, Tranquilitea has hosted everyone from heads of state to business tycoons, from celebrities and movie stars to global sports stars and icons.

“We have even had guests who visited the Nilgiris only to do the tea tasting with us. Conde Nast Traveller called us one of the seven best places in the world for tea, and we even found a place in The Lonely Planet Guide to India,” shares Sandeep.

While India remains Tranquilitea’s primary market, its teas have travelled far — to Japan, Germany, Singapore, the UK, the USA, the UAE, France, and beyond.

Planet-positive: Tea, tradition, and the timeless hills of the Nilgiris

The more you speak with Sandeep, you realise that his relationship with tea runs deeper than business — it’s cultural, emotional, and ecological.

Along with their generational passion for Nilgiri tea, what sets their estate apart is their commitment to preserving traditional methods and knowledge.

“We consciously avoid chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and grow tea using organic principles,” he shares. The estate prunes bushes every few years, leaving the branches to compost naturally, enriching the soil.

Sandeep has also planted hundreds of shola trees across his estates — efforts that will not only raise groundwater levels but also add shade, enriching the flavour profile of Nilgiri teas. 

Sholas are rare ecosystems of grasses, shrubs, and clustered trees that thrive only above 6,000 feet in the Western Ghats. This means there are only certain pockets where this ecosystem can thrive.

He works closely with Godwin Vasanth Bosco, ecologist and founder of Upstream Ecology, to restore these fragile shola patches. “At Upstream Ecology, one of our goals is to work towards recreating entire shola forest communities, and recreating these rare ‘cloud forests’. Although they are making a slow comeback over their traditional habitat, regenerating shola forests is still extremely beneficial to the biosphere,” Bosco explains.

“We are looking to transform about 25% of our estates with shola trees and grasses and other indigenous plants,” adds Sandeep.

In Sandeep’s own words, they are a small operation that currently employs around 50 employees in total. They are ‘community-first’ because workdays are capped at six hours, giving staff time for family and personal pursuits.

Tea pluckers Chandra (47), Asuntha (55), and Mary (59), who’ve worked here for over 25 years, agree that a lot has changed since Tranquilitea started — from eliminating pesticides to producing hand-rolled teas to planting shola trees.

“Our salaries have also increased, and now we regularly see wildlife — Indian gaurs and birds we never saw 25 years ago. That’s probably because we stopped using chemicals. It’s better working outdoors in nature than inside four walls,” they smile and add.

From setbacks to growth

Just like most businesses, the early years were tough. “Very few guests came to our tea house, and we could barely make ends meet or pay salaries from the income we generated,” recalls Sandeep. “But I believed that if you have the right product and stick with it, things change. Today, we have bookings made a year or more in advance.”

Another challenge came when the colonial bungalow they had rented was reclaimed by its owners. Forced to shift into their own, more remote estate, Sandeep had to rethink the model.

“Earlier, people could just drop in for tea and snacks. Now, being more interior, we moved towards curated gourmet tea tastings and afternoon tea experiences that required prior reservations.”

What seemed like a setback became an advantage — today, guests often call the tasting the highlight of their Nilgiris visit.

Louise H, who visited the estate with his family, says it’s “definitely something to do if you’re staying in the Nilgiris.” For him, the afternoon was both informative and relaxing — beginning with a gentle walk among the tea bushes, followed by an engaging indoor session on all things tea and a tasting of six different varieties. “It was fascinating and delicious,” he recalls, adding that Sandeep is “a lovely and extremely knowledgeable host and farmer.”

Tej, another traveller who spent an afternoon at the estate, calls it “a memorable, cosy experience” — complete with tea tasting and a walk through the Coonoor estate. Describing Sandeep as “a passionate tea connoisseur and a great host,” Tej says it’s an offbeat experience the whole family can enjoy.

Nilgiri Tea — A legacy brewed in stories, soil and time

In Sandeep Subramani’s welcoming world, tea isn’t just a drink. It’s a legacy, a livelihood, and a living ecosystem. What he is building in the Nilgiris is a blueprint — a regenerative, rooted, and replicable way of bringing together tradition, ecology, and economy. It’s not just “business”.

If you ask him how many tonnes of tea they produce annually, he says in his usual calm manner, “We are into small batch production where each tea is meticulously crafted, often by hand. We focus on quality, and we are not into the volumes game.”

At a time when conversations around sustainability are often driven by scale and technology, Tranquilitea reminds us that sometimes, the answers lie in looking back — at what the land once offered, what our grandparents once knew, and what our hands can still create.

Sandeep has big dreams. He is currently setting up a micro-factory to produce small-batch speciality orthodox teas and is collaborating with industry leaders and stakeholders in the Nilgiris to host a festival celebrating Nilgiri teas in September 2027.

Nilgiri tea may have taken the long road to the spotlight, but with people like Sandeep at the helm, it’s finally claiming its place — tasting of misty mornings, mindful hands, and a future brewed slow, with heart, and brewed right.

To shop from their gourmet tea catalogue, book their gourmet tea-tasting experience or their experiential holidays, you can visit the official website of Tranquilitea.

Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thebetterindia.com