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| Geragama Tea Factory |
My favourite hot drink is a cup of black tea (with milk and no sugar). So it was good to visit a tea plantation and processing factory on my recent visit to Sri Lanka.
My tour group stopped off at the Geragama Tea Factory on our drive to Kandy.
We started with a short walk into the tea plantation and picked a few leaves. We then went on a free tour that lasted about 40 minutes through the various section of the tea processing factory and included a cup of tea at the end.
The Geragama Tea Factory is a real working tea factory with old machinery in an old building built in 1903. It was an enjoyable tour, even though the factory has narrow passages to navigate and steps to climb between the various levels and is noisy and hot for the purpose of drying processes. There are toilets available for visitors to use.
We started with a short walk into the tea plantation and picked a few leaves. We then went on a free tour that lasted about 40 minutes through the various section of the tea processing factory and included a cup of tea at the end.
The Geragama Tea Factory is a real working tea factory with old machinery in an old building built in 1903. It was an enjoyable tour, even though the factory has narrow passages to navigate and steps to climb between the various levels and is noisy and hot for the purpose of drying processes. There are toilets available for visitors to use.
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| Geragama Tea Factory |
A knowledgeable and charming guide who spoke good English walked us through the factory where we were shown the various stages of producing tea, starting with the drying troughs on an upper floor. The guide explained the process from picking, crushing, sorting, classing, drying, to bagging. She was very informative about the process of making different types & grades of tea. She turned on the machines so we could watch them running and were allowed to touch and smell the tea at each station.
The tea factory feels very old-world and colonial, with the creaky wooden floors and a few stairs to go up and down between the various floors. The traditional methods and very old noisy machines introduced by the British are still mostly in place and still chugging away.
At the end of the tour, there was a well-informed tasting session and the opportunity to sit and relax in a comfortable old-world feeling tea room upstairs above the factory. We were seated on cane chairs on old wooden teak floors with bay windows looking out onto the tea estate and given a free cup of tea taken the traditional way with a biscuit. We tasted black tea with some palm sugar. Rather than placing cane sugar in the cup of tea, you bite & suck the palm sugar to sweeten the mouth.
The tea factory feels very old-world and colonial, with the creaky wooden floors and a few stairs to go up and down between the various floors. The traditional methods and very old noisy machines introduced by the British are still mostly in place and still chugging away.
At the end of the tour, there was a well-informed tasting session and the opportunity to sit and relax in a comfortable old-world feeling tea room upstairs above the factory. We were seated on cane chairs on old wooden teak floors with bay windows looking out onto the tea estate and given a free cup of tea taken the traditional way with a biscuit. We tasted black tea with some palm sugar. Rather than placing cane sugar in the cup of tea, you bite & suck the palm sugar to sweeten the mouth.
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| Geragama Tea Factory |
There is the option to buy tea of varying types and flavours in the gift shop after the tea tasting. There are lots of herbal teas and flavoured teas alongside the standard black teas. Tea in various packaging and sizes is available for visitors to buy should they wish to do so. There is no pressure to purchase something.
To fill in the rest of the day, you can also find a nearby spice garden with demonstrations, a gemstone factory, and a woodcarving factory that are completely free but have shops to make purchases if visitors wish to.
When Sri Lanka was a British colony from 1815 to 1948 the island’s name was Ceylon. The name Ceylon lives on when it is used in denoting Ceylon Tea. Tea growing is an important part of Sri Lankas economy and has a long history. In 1867 the first tea estate in Sri Lanka was born., started by Scotsman James Taylor. In 1873 the first shipment of Ceylon Tea was sent to London. In 1883 the first public tea auction was held in Colombo.
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| Geragama Tea Factory |
It was a nice glimpse to see how tea is processed at the Geragama Tea Factory and how labor intensive it is. I had no idea that making tea was such an involved process, and I will definitely enjoy each cup I drink in the future, knowing the time and effort that goes into it.
Geragama Tea Factory
Ceylon Estates Teas
Ceylon Estates Teas
Location: 40 minutes out of Kandy on the Colombo to Kandy Road
Hours: 8:30-5:30 daily
Website on Tripadvisor - Geragama Tea Factory
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