Tea-Estate Tasting

Walk a working hill-country estate and taste Ceylon tea from leaf to cup.

What the Tea-Estate Tasting is really like.

Ceylon tea built the hill country, and a working estate is the place to understand it. You walk among the bushes with the pluckers, follow the leaf into the factory through withering, rolling, oxidation and firing, then sit down to a guided tasting. A tea sommelier shows you how altitude and grade change a brew from a brisk high-grown to a soft low-country cup. The cool, misty estates around Nuwara Eliya and Hatton are the classic setting.

At a glance

Best season: Year-round (clearest January – March)
Typical duration: Half day
Regions: 2

Moment by moment

How the day unfolds.

Step 01
Among the tea bushes
Walk the terraced slopes with the pluckers, learning why only the top two leaves and a bud are picked.
Step 02
Into the factory
Follow the fresh leaf through withering lofts, rolling machines and the firing ovens that make black tea.
Step 03
Grades and altitude
See how the leaf is sorted into grades and hear why high-grown estates give a brighter, brisker cup.
Step 04
The guided tasting
Slurp and compare several single-estate teas the way the tasters do, from first sip to lingering finish.
Step 05
A cup in the mist
Finish with a pot of your favourite on the estate veranda as the hill-country mist rolls through.