Being quite the tea drinkers we found it very cool to take a tour of a tea plantation and factory.  All of the tea plantations in Sri Lanka used to be coffee plantations it is believed that the coffee was introduced by the Dutch but cultivated massively when the British took control.  However in the 1860's a fungus (coffee rust) came through and killed all of the coffee plants.  By accident they discovered that the tea tree was immune to the fungus.  Thus all of the coffee plantations became tea plantations.
Tea is hand picked (mostly by Tamil Indian woman) then transported to the factory where it is processed.  First the tea leaves are dried on a massive trough which has a huge fan under it that blows warm air on the tea leaves.






Next the leaves are chopped, sorted, heated again by warm air from a kiln for 21 minutes.  It is then placed in these massive brown paper sacks to be taken to the tea auction.  Companies like Lipton then buy the unbranded tea, rebrand and package it and put it on the shelves.  An amazing process to witness.





Kingsley (ever the gentleman) helping out with shoveling the tea.




Beautiful landscape of tea plantations.  The very tall trees you see in the photos are Eucalyptus tress which are known for their deep roots.  They are planted to prevent erosion.