The genesis of the High Range (as Munnar’s tea estates are referred to) dates back to the 1870’s when British civil servants visited there hills-then teeming with wildlife-on annual shikar expeditions. Forseeing the agricultural potential of the region, these pioneers experimented with many crops such as coffee, cinchona, sisal and cardamom before discovering that tea was best suited to the area. The first tea was planted by A.H.Sharp in 1877 in what is now Sevenmallay Estate. In 1895 the Glasgow-based James Finlay Group acquired the tea estates which later entered a joint venture with the Tata group. In April 2005 Tata tea transferred the ownership of their Tea Plantations in Munnar to a new company, Kannan Devan Hills Plantations Company Private Limited formed by its employees. The new company has 16 tea estates spread over nearly 8600 hectares of tea and an employee strength of around 13,000.