Visit to Wewessa Tea Estate | Badulla

Hello Everyone,

A few days ago, I shared with you that I had a training session in Pelgahathenna, near both Badulla and Passara towns. You know about this area very well. One of the best tourist destinations in the country, with a pleasing climate along with great scenery as well.

And there is something more important here. This area has several tea estates and tea factories where the top export product of the country is manufactured. Ceylon Tea is widely popular around the globe for its unique taste and qualities.

So, I had the opportunity to visit one of the factories, nearby, Wewessa tea factory, and the estate.

The Entrance

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With some contacts there, we could take permission to visit the factory and have some explanation and understanding of the process. There were 10 of us and around 04.30 p.m we arrived there.

As mentioned in the above picture, it belongs to Balangoda Plantation PLC. It has been established in 1890 under British control, and the structures and most of the systems and machinery are still functioning from that period.

As you can see in the below pictures, you can see how they managed and maintained the surrounding nicely and tide. When we entered the place our sensations were aroused by the aroma.

The Estate and the surrounding

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This is the place where pure tea products with different grades are made from leaves. Then the auctions are done and then the potential buyers take these pure products and converted them into different brands adding their own flavors etc.

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The Factory Building

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The location is placed through a wind tunnel" or "wind passage through a mountain"(Hulan Kapolla), to obtain the natural air and ventilation well in the drying process. You can see there are a large number of windows also for that process. And the structure is made from very light materials, yet very strong, I think due to the compatibility in construction.

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The Internal Process

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There is a long and standard method to obtain the final product from the fresh leaves. After plucking the tea leaves manually, they were transferred to the factory. Then there are several processes to be done as withering, rolling/ primary breaking up of leaves, Fermentation/Oxidisation, Drying and then sorting and Grading, then Tasting & Assessing.

There are separate machineries for these processes and manpower is also there.

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Consierinfgthe sizes and quality the tea is separated into different grades. You can have a good understanding of this from this article, Main Grades. So, according to the demand around the world, the prices are decided and in Sri Lanka, we commonly consumed the BOP type/ dust, which is less in price.

So, it's actually a nice experience and could learn a lot. We could purchase some pure tea from their outlet as well.

Until the next time! Enjoy!

Thank you.
Best Regards!