Exploring the Tea Culture of Sri Lanka

Hey everyone, after some time I get back to you with a new post in which I would like to share an experience I made in Sri Lanka. I hope you like the contribution and appreciate what I do and maybe can motivate other people to start travelling.

Sri Lanka is a country that has a lot of culture to offer and an aspect of it in which I would like to devote myself in this article is the diverse tea culture. In total I was able to visit two places where this culture is strongly pronounced, but in order to better understand this culture, someone first have to deal with the history a bit. In the past, the country was better known for growing coffee and later during the 19th century when Scottish immigrants entered the country they started to promote the cultivation and over the generations, it came to the fact that more and more plantations were created which today characterise a large part of the landscape. Everyone has probably heard of Ceylon tea, which is one of the most important goods of the country, and every year thousands of tons are exported to other countries.

Not only black tea is particularly widespread there but also green or white tea and during my time in Sri Lanka, I was not only able to see how the tea is grown but also visited two factories which are deeply represented in the history of the country and have been doing business for generations. Not all factories are open to the public with guided tours, but it can be worthwhile to visit some spontaneously and ask if it is possible to take a look behind the scenes to escape the typical tourist traps. As in the past, the tea is traditionally picked by hand and then processed in different stages, but the process here can vary greatly and each factory is using different methods which, although they are similar in the core but have their own characteristics.

Even if there is tea everywhere in the country, a large part of it comes from the areas of Nuwara Eliya or kandy as well as the surrounding landscapes and here you can admire farms for kilometres, which sometimes work organic but unfortunately also in some areas with pesticides. In the factories I could honestly experience that not every tea is of the same quality and some factories also process the stems while others put more on quality. I also did the famous tour by train which leads from candy to Ella and actually drives through the middle of the plantations and here there are plants to admire from all sides but part of the route was closed during my time because a past crisis which is why I had to make a detour, which was worth it at the end of the day. Also in Ella I could see plants everywhere which are maybe rare in other places, but can no longer be counted here, even in the garden of my accommodation tea grew everywhere.

The altitude also has a huge influence when it comes to the aroma of the tea and while in the highlands the tea tastes rather light, it is much more bitter in the lowlands. When the leaves have arrived in production, they are usually rolled and fermented and the drying is usually fast and numerous technical means are used to ensure good quality. Most factories send the harvest to the capital from where it is later exported to other countries and only a small part is sold in the country itself, but the traditional preparation is often different and here tea is not drunk pure but similar to India is often mixed with sugar or milk. Some factories have existed for decades as well as the tea factory of the Rothschild family which is one of the oldest in the country and I could also visit and also I have visited the uva halpawatte factory which was a bit more touristy than the Rothschild, but there was also more information there. At both factories I was able to test myself through the range and the uva factory alone already had over 20 different varieties of black tea which all differed significantly.

Some of the factories also date back to the time of the British colonies, which had a significant impact on the growth of the culture and also created thousands of jobs in this area. In the areas there are traces of the culture everywhere like whole museums that revolve around the topic and when it comes to learn more about the tea culture, Sri Lanka is probably generally one of the best destinations but it is more than just the pure sale of tea as a business model, it has become a stamp of the country around which numerous customs have developed and for me as friend of tea I was definitely in the best hands in Sri Lanka.

Many thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new and like my post and appreciate my effort! I captured these pictures with my Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 and iPhone 16.