The Nilgiri Hills — the Blue Mountains — rise sharply from the plains of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka at the point where the Western and Eastern Ghats converge. At 2,240 metres, Ooty (Udhagamandalam) sits amid one of the most beautiful and least celebrated tea-growing landscapes in India.
Nilgiri tea is made for masala chai. Its character — bright, brisk, with a clean finish and faint floral note — holds up superbly against milk and spice. It is the most widely used tea base in South Indian filter coffee culture's northern cousin, and it is increasingly being discovered by specialty tea traders worldwide.
The Nilgiri Tea: Distinct from Assam and Darjeeling
Nilgiri tea occupies the middle ground between the muscular CTC of Assam and the complex floral character of Darjeeling. It is produced both as CTC (for the commercial market) and as orthodox whole-leaf tea (for the specialty and export market). The orthodox versions are the ones worth seeking out:
- FOP (Flowery Orange Pekoe): Long, twisted leaves with golden tips, brews to a bright copper
- TGFOP (Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe): The premium grade, more tip content, more fragrance
- BOP (Broken Orange Pekoe): CTC-adjacent, used widely in South Indian chai
The distinctive brightness of Nilgiri tea comes from the region's cool nights and warm days — the same diurnal temperature variation that gives Darjeeling its complexity, but at a different altitude and in a different latitude.
The Toy Train: Tea Country by Rail
The Nilgiri Mountain Railway — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — runs from Mettupalayam on the plains to Ooty, climbing 2,000 metres through tea gardens, eucalyptus forests, and dramatic ravines over 46 kilometres. The rack-and-pinion section between Mettupalayam and Coonoor is the steepest in India.
The chai cart on this train is a genuine institution: an attendant with a thermos and small cups who appears at key intervals, offering hot, slightly over-sweet, perfectly appropriate chai as the train labours upward through the tea bushes.
Coonoor: The Tea Town
Coonoor, 27km below Ooty, is the working heart of Nilgiri tea production. The Highfield Tea Factory in Coonoor offers tours — following the leaf from withering troughs through CTC rollers to drying and sorting — that are among the most informative tea education experiences in South India. The tasting room at the end serves three grades side by side.
The chai stalls in Coonoor's market serve a local style that is heavier on cardamom and lighter on ginger than North Indian masala chai — a South Indian interpretation that pairs well with murukku (crunchy rice-flour spirals) or bonda (potato-filled fried dumplings).
Kotagiri: The Quieter Alternative
The least-visited of the three Nilgiri towns, Kotagiri retains the atmosphere that Ooty had fifty years ago — small, unhurried, genuinely local. The tea estates around Kotagiri are some of the oldest in the Nilgiris (the Dunsandle Estate was established in 1859) and their gardens are open to visitors who ask.
“📍 South IndiaIn the Nilgiris, tea and mist are the same weather system. The leaves drink from the clouds; you drink from the leaves. The circle is complete.