Black tea from Sri Lanka is available everywhere, but does not have the best reputation among connoisseurs. Visiting farmers who want to do better.
“Only the top two leaves and the bud!” cries Jayanthi Creantholla. She shows visitors to the “Heritance Tea Factory” how to pick tea. She plucks the light green tips from the bush with her thumb, forefinger and middle finger, they are still wet from the rain that night. Without looking back, she tosses the leaves over her shoulder into a basket made of woven raffia that is tied to her forehead with a ribbon. hit! Experienced pickers harvest more than 20 kilos of fresh leaves a day in this way, resulting in four to six kilos of dried tea, depending on the variety. Whether black tea, green tea, white tea, golden tips or oolong: the basic material is always young leaves of Camelia sinensis, as the botanical name of the tea plant is.