Everything you wanted to know about Sri Lankan teas
Sri Lanka has a colonial plantation tea story and an industry that’s 150 years old and dominated by black tea. Add variations in wind, rain, biodiversity, proximity to forest and ocean, and you have a tea for every preference
I just finished the last of my Ceylon tea stash from last year and caught myself wishing I’d had a guide to its teas and terroir. So I decided to put one together.
Like India, Sri Lanka has a colonial plantation tea story and an industry that’s 150 years old and dominated by black tea. It begins with Scotsman James Taylor planting Assamica cultivars on 19 acres at the Loolecondera Estate in Kandy, Sri Lanka’s first commercial tea estate.
Sri Lanka’s highlands transformed from coffee to tea. After independence in 1972, when Ceylon became Sri Lanka, the tea industry continued to market itself as Ceylon Tea, so strong was the brand recall. The lion logo, added later, indicates that the tea is 100% grown, processed, and packaged in Sri Lanka.
More than a few times, my mention “Ceylon Tea" has drawn the response, “Orange Pekoe" (OP) from friends and family. OP isn’t a flavour but a whole-leaf black tea grade. Sri Lanka remains the world’s largest producer of orthodox mass-premium long-leaf and broken-leaf black tea. But as consumers, terroir trumps grade.
There are seven tea regions: Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Uva, Dimbula, Uda Pusselawa, Sabaragamuwa, and Ruhuna, clustered in the south-central highlands and differentiated by elevation: high grown (above 4,000ft), mid-grown (2,000-4,000ft), and low grown (below 2,000ft). Add variations in wind, rain, biodiversity, proximity to forest and ocean, and you have a tea for every preference.
My selection of teas from Sri Lanka is based on our palate.
If you like milk tea, choose from Kandy, Dimbula, Sabaragamuwa, or Ruhuna.
Kandy is the birthplace of the island’s tea industry and the tea I started with. It produces a bright, strong, full-bodied cup. It became my go-to mid-morning tea. Dimbula is the local favourite, more mellow, and the sort you can have with milk or without. I used to reach for this in the late afternoon when I wanted light but still perky. Sabaragamuwa, now the island’s largest tea-growing region, sits at low elevation: the tea is sweeter, with that reddish cup colour we love.
Ruhuna, a coastal plain, is also a biodiversity hot spot. It is strong, rich, full-bodied, a tea I got through fairly quickly and missed when it was over.
If you enjoy plain black tea, choose Uva, a high-elevation aromatic tea, or the more subtle Uda Pusselawa.
The connoisseur’s pick: Hands down, Nuwara Eliya. High elevation, light, fragrant—it’s the tea that put the island on the map, showing its finest side. I savoured it till the very end.
TEA TAKES
In Sri Lanka, look for Tea Tang Boutique or the Dilmah Lounge. Notable estates are Mahagastotte, Pedro and Lovers Leap (Nuwara Eliya), Craighead estate (Kandy), Somerset estate and Bearwell (Dimbula) and Lumbini Tea Valley (Ruhuna). Look for them online or under Dilmah’s Watte collection.
Tea Nanny is a fortnightly series on the world of tea. Aravinda Anantharaman is a tea drinker, writer and editor. She posts @AravindaAnanth1
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