India’s elephant-friendly tea garden | Hacker News Reader

India’s elephant-friendly tea garden

bbc.com

101 pointsMiriamWeiner11 comments

This problem seems compatible with a permaculture approach: Shape your land and crops to form a synergy with the environment and local flora and fauna.

I have no clue on how to keep elephants out, though. Chicken wire?

Looks like this farmer does it by creating a corridor for them filled with the things they want: starfruit, elephant apples, watering hole etc. If the desire path for the elephants falls outside the normal tea operation, then they won't interact with the tea farm.

Seems like a lot of land to set aside and design, hopefully he is able to make up for it in exposure and tourism.

I doubt chicken wire would work:

> Elephants learn by trial and error what sorts of materials do and do not shock them in their efforts to break through electric fences — and in at least one recorded instance (described in Lawrence Anthony’s The Elephant Whisperer [2009]), followed the buzzing of the fence all the way around to its origin, the generator, which, having been stomped to smithereens, allowed them to untwine the fence and go their merry way.

https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/do-elephants-hav...

1. Ditches. The bigger they are, the less than want to fall.

2. Beehive fences. (http://elephantsandbees.com/)

This is very fascinating. An interesting approach to some of the problems that elephants can create.

Another interesting project(though in Sri Lanka):https://mrelliepooh.com/

Also - black tea from Assam is fantastic. However, last time I was in India I was frequently ruining it in the mornings by adding salt to it, or other items to try to replenish lost electrolytes.

Himalayan butter coffee is a salty recipie. Give it a try, and you might enjoy it.

Do you have a link for the recipe? The first page of Google results doesn't show anything called exactly that.

It is also confusing because coffee is not a traditional drink in the Himalayan regions I'm familiar with. You didn't mean Butter Tea[1], did you?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_tea

I totally meant Butter Tea. My bad. My first foray into buttered drinks was via Bulletproof Coffee, which was inspired by Butter Tea[1]. My typo was the result of confusing the two.

>As it turns out, the idea of mixing something fatty into a hot beverage to start off a hard day’s work is not so new. In fact, the inspiration for Bulletproof Coffee came to Asprey during a 2005 trip to the Himalayas. In Tibet, yak butter tea is often called the national drink, with some individuals consuming up to 60 cups per day.

[1] http://contemporaryfoodlab.com/hungry-world/2015/08/before-t...

> with some individuals consuming up to 60 cups per day.

My arteries hurt just from reading this.

And I say this as someone who's eating a block of Dubliner cheese for lunch at this very moment.

I feel like Assam tea works best with milk. When having without milk, I prefer Darjeeling.

Best tea I've ever had was a strongly brewed Darjeeling made with leaves gifted to me from someone's trip to India. I've not since recreated that taste. I like a somewhat milky assam & ceylon mix as well (effectively English Breakfast) but the quality tends to be so weak it just tastes like weed water most of the time.

I'm usually a black coffee drinker so I like a 'bold' taste.

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