The Matale District in Sri Lanka’s Central Province is one of the most important regions for mid-country tea production, with gardens at elevations between 600 and 900 metres. Mid-grown Ceylon teas from this altitude produce a fuller-bodied, darker brew compared to the delicate high-grown teas of Nuwara Eliya and Dimbula. Sri Lanka’s tea industry was established in the 1860s by Scottish planter James Taylor following the collapse of the island’s coffee crop due to coffee leaf rust, and the country remains one of the world’s top four tea exporters by volume.
A tea plantation tour in the Matale area visits a working estate, walking through the rows of Camellia sinensis bushes to observe the hand-plucking process â only the two youngest leaves and the terminal bud are harvested in order to preserve quality. The factory tour covers the five stages of Orthodox processing: withering, rolling, oxidation, drying (firing), and grading. Sri Lanka’s Orthodox method, still standard on most estates, produces whole-leaf and broken-leaf grades prized in the international specialty tea market. Tours typically conclude with a tasting of freshly brewed estate tea.
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