At Pepper Trail in Wayanad, you can reconnect with nature with a twist of health at a one-of-its-kind medicinal plant forest.

In 1932, Balaram Kurup bought a 200-acre estate in Wayanad in Kerala. Well, if you are wondering what is unusual here read on. Kurup happens to be the first person in Asia to extract essential oils. He bought this estate to grow aromatic plants and worked on extraction and export of essential oils. The old bungalow on the estate was originally built by a Scottish planter. Kurup worked at his laboratory here where he experimented on essential oils. He had set aside an area of 20 acres within the plantation for the cultivation of aromatic and medicinal plants for his research.

However, the next generation did not do much with continuing his work and the 20-acre plot lay forgotten for many decades. A couple of years ago, his grandson Anand Jayan and his parents decided to revive the area which still had many of the original medicinal plants to create a healing forest in his memory. The objective of this not-for-profit project was the conservation of endangered medicinal plant species endemic to the region.

Read the full story that first appeared in The New Indian Express dated Dec 20, 2020 here: