Tea leaves are no longer carried only by baskets, ropeways or rail in Kerala's Munnar, as the region's iconic tea plantations begin testing drone technology for transporting freshly plucked leaves. A pilot project at the Lockhart Estate is introducing drones to improve tea harvesting efficiency while reducing the physical burden on plantation workers. A quadcopter drone developed by a Bengaluru-based company has been deployed to carry between 10 and 15 kilograms of freshly harvested tea leaves per trip from plantation fields to designated collection points. By transporting harvested leaves directly to weighing points, the project is expected to reduce manual labour while speeding up the collection process. If the pilot project proves successful, the estate plans to introduce higher-capacity drones capable of transporting up to 100 kilograms of tea leaves, marking another step towards modernising tea harvesting and plantation logistics in Munnar.