Sri Lanka’s Tea Trails
From the window of the train leaving Kandy, the world seemed to unfold like a silk scarf — green upon green upon green. The air cooled as we climbed into the central highlands, the heat of the coast giving way to a soft mist that curled around eucalyptus groves and hill slopes stitched with neat rows of tea bushes.
This was Sri Lanka’s tea country, where the rhythm of life has been shaped for more than 150 years by the leaves that end up in teacups around the world. I had come to walk the trails between estates, to meet the people behind the brew, and to hear the stories whispered by the mist.
The Approach to Hatton
The train wound past waterfalls tumbling down granite cliffs and small villages with red-tiled roofs. Vendors stepped aboard at each stop selling hot chai in paper cups, the scent of cardamom and ginger trailing behind them.
By late afternoon, I stepped off at Hatton station, where a driver took me up a narrow road lined with cypress and wildflowers. We climbed higher until the valley opened, revealing a patchwork of emerald hills broken by the silvery shimmer of reservoirs. In the distance, a plantation bungalow stood white against the green — my base for the next few days.
A Morning Among the Tea Pluckers
At dawn, I followed a path down into the fields. Women in bright saris were already at work, their hands a blur as they plucked the tender top two leaves and a bud from each plant, tossing them into sacks slung across their backs.
One of them, Mala, smiled as I approached. She explained that she had been plucking tea since she was a teenager, as had her mother and grandmother before her. The work was demanding — each worker might gather more than 15 kilograms of leaves in a day — but she spoke with pride. “Good leaves make good tea,” she said simply.
The air was thick with the scent of green leaves, and the rhythmic snip-snip of plucking mingled with the low hum of conversation in Tamil.
The Tea Factory
Later, I visited the estate’s tea factory, where the leaves’ journey truly began. Inside, the air was warm and sweet. Rows of withering troughs held the day’s harvest, the leaves slowly losing moisture under the gentle push of fans.
A guide named Ruwan walked me through each stage: withering, rolling, fermenting, drying, and finally sorting. He handed me a small handful of fresh, twisted leaves. “Ceylon tea is about brightness and clarity,” he said. “We don’t hide the leaf. We let it speak.”
We ended in the tasting room, where cups of tea — from pale gold to deep amber — were lined up in neat rows. I sipped one after another, each with its own nuance: floral, citrusy, malty, brisk.
Walking the Tea Trails
In the days that followed, I explored the network of old estate roads and footpaths known as the Tea Trails. Some wound past bungalows once home to British planters, now restored as guesthouses; others crossed bridges over streams where kingfishers flashed blue in the sunlight.
One morning, I hiked to Castlereagh Reservoir, where the mirrored surface reflected the surrounding hills. In the stillness, I could hear the distant murmur of workers in the fields and the faint whistle of a far-off train.
A Planter’s Story
One evening over dinner, the estate’s current manager, a Sri Lankan named Anura, shared the history of tea in the country. Tea had been introduced in the 19th century by the Scotsman James Taylor after a coffee blight devastated the plantations. The climate of the central highlands proved perfect, and soon the island — then Ceylon — became one of the world’s great tea producers.
Anura gestured toward the hills beyond the window. “These slopes hold generations of labor and care,” he said. “Every bush has been touched by hundreds of hands over the years.”
Life Beyond the Plantations
The tea estates are not just workplaces — they are communities. In one village near the edge of the estate, I visited a small school where children recited English and Sinhala lessons. Their parents worked in the fields and factories, and the school stood as a bright spot of opportunity in a life often defined by hard work.
A woman named Saraswati offered me sweet milk tea in her kitchen and told me about the festivals that light up the hills each year: Deepavali with its oil lamps, Sinhala and Tamil New Year with games and feasts. “Tea is our work,” she said. “But this is our life.”
The Legacy of the Bungalows
Back at my own bungalow, I felt the echoes of the colonial past in the polished teak floors, the wide verandas, and the neatly kept gardens of roses and hibiscus. The air carried the scent of woodsmoke from the fireplace — a reminder that despite being in the tropics, the highlands can be cool, even chilly, at night.
Afternoon tea here was a small ritual: fine china, scones with homemade jam, cucumber sandwiches, and cups of strong, bright Ceylon tea. Outside, the hills rolled away into a sea of green, just as they had for more than a century.
Misty Farewell
On my last morning, the mist lay thick over the fields, turning the tea bushes into soft, ghostly shapes. I walked the path to the edge of the estate, past a row of workers heading to the day’s first pick. They greeted me with a wave, their laughter carrying through the fog.
From a ridge, I looked back at the bungalow, at the tea-draped slopes, at the shimmering line of the reservoir. Somewhere in the distance, a train whistled — the same train that would take me back down to the heat of the coast.
I thought of Mala and Ruwan, of Anura and Saraswati, of the thousands of hands that had kept this landscape alive. The leaves would travel far from here, to kitchens and cafés and morning rituals across the world. But their roots, both literal and cultural, would remain deep in this highland soil.
As the mist began to lift, the green of the tea fields brightened again, as if the hills themselves were waking up. I took one last deep breath, tasting the faint tang of leaves in the air, and started back toward the station.
