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Tea leaves that are worth a detour

In the south of Sri Lanka, tea is mostly grown by individual farmers who cultivate their own land. They sell the tea leaves just after the harvest, as they don’t have the infrastructure to process...

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To select a tea, you have to taste dozens

When we attend professional tea tastings, there is a great number of teas to assess. It can range from three or four to several dozen. Sometimes the teas we taste are all quite similar, like here in...

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On a tea plantation, trees need to be pruned too

On a tea plantation, tea plants are not the only ones that need care and attention:  the trees do too. If you want their leaves to give a little shade to the camelias, the trees have to be prevented...

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In Colombo, weekly tea auctions are held

I am writing this in Colombo, in the room where the weekly tea auctions are held. In fact there are many auction rooms like the one I’m sitting in now, where different grades are sold. The three...

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Tea tasting with Dilan and Vidusha

Last week, in the company of Dilan Wijeyesekera and Vidusha Wakista, I tasted teas from the regions of Dimbula, Uva and Nuwara Eliya, side by side. Dilan and Vidusha work for the company Mabroc and...

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Palm trees giving shade to tea plants

Here, in the south of Sri Lanka, in the “low grown teas” region, the sun is very intense, and it is best to protect the tea plants from its rays for at least a few hours a day. Curiously, palm trees...

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A planter’s estate typical of the British era

When the British were in charge of tea production they created vast estates and put in place systems to manufacture large quantities of tea. On each estate they built a bungalow, which might be small...

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A winter harvest in Sri Lanka

The low sun illuminates these bags filled with freshly plucked tea leaves, creating a contrasting effect of light and shadow. The men work quickly, emptying the bags and spreading the leaves out on...

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Magnificent Sri Lankan landscape

For those lucky enough to visit the beautiful country of Sri Lanka, this is the type of landscape found around the Sinharaja reserve in the south of the island. This is the region where the low-grown...

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The tea harvest in the south of Sri Lanka

Sometimes the people who harvest tea don’t have the necessary equipment to process the leaves. In this case, they sell their crop to another farmer who is able to process it. This is what happens in...

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Small-scale tea producers in Sri Lanka

In the south of Sri Lanka there are many small-scale producers who grow tea and then sell the fresh leaves to one of the local factories. For them, tea represents one source of income among others,...

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Tasting many teas

It is no more difficult to taste thirty or forty teas than to taste two or three. On the contrary: you move quickly from one to the next, you spit each one out, you concentrate so you can compare...

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Escaping the city

I don’t like cars. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to get out of town by train, escaping the crowds, and, through the open windows, feeling the factories, the dust and the noise becoming more...

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The art of picking leaves

To produce a high-quality tea, you must start by harvesting the leaves carefully; in other words, picking off the end shoot, the bud and the next two leaves. If you take off more leaves, the quality...

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A very broken tea

In some regions of Sri Lanka, they produce a tea that is so fine, so broken, so black, it is undrinkable. Or else you have to add milk and sugar, or dilute it with water.

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A tea field in Sri Lanka

The plantations in central Sri Lanka don’t produce particularly good tea, but they are extremely beautiful. Here, the Maussakelle reservoir really enhances the soft green expanses of the tea fields.

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A magnificent bungalow

The British had an instinct for comfort. They built magnificent bungalows during the colonial era. These buildings still exist today, surrounded by tea fields, like here in Gorthie (Sri Lanka). I was...

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A terrible machine for tea

It is difficult to find good tea in Sri Lanka, and here is a photo of the guilty party. Known as a rotorvane, it puts the leaves under enormous pressure and can roll three times the quantity of...

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Adam’s Peak

Many Sri Lankans have climbed the slopes of Adam’s Peak at least once in their lifetime. It is a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists, who worship Buddha’s footprint at the summit, but also for Hindus,...

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Little Adam’s Peak

I was incredibly fortunate, when I woke yesterday without knowing exactly where I was, to discover this sublime view from my bed. I’d arrived in Ella late the night before, from Ratnapura, and without...

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