Uva Halpewaththa Tea Factory in Ella (Sri Lanka)

http://www.halpetea.com located in Ella is one of several hundred black or brown tea factories in Sri Lanka and one of the biggest. It can produce around 8,000 kilograms or almost 9 tons of tea per day. Some interesting facts: - 5 step process that can take around a day and a half or more depending upon the weather/amount of rain. - The tea making equipment comes from Taiwan. - Higher quality tea is exported while lower quality tea is for domestic consumption. - The strongest teas go to the Middle East/Iran, less strong to Britain and the weaker teas go to China. - Powdered tea = more surface area = more caffeine/stronger taste. Less surface area or bigger pieces = less caffeine/weaker tea. - Factory has 90 employees and is mostly automated. - Tea picking will probably need to be automated as the younger generation does not want to pick tea leaves. - If the leaves were not picked, the tea bushes would grow up to 18 meters high. They can grow anywhere BUT cool wet climates are best. - Soil quality, amount of rain etc impact quality/taste. - You can remove the caffeine from loose leaf tea by pouring boiling water on the tea, draining the water after 30 seconds and then pouring more water on them and drinking that. However, this technique won't work with tea bags as chemicals/flavors etc are added to that tea. - The factories mostly just produce raw tea. The buyers then add their own proprietary formulas to create flavored teas e.g. cranberry apple, blackberry etc. - Tea in sealed air tight containers will keep for at least three years. - The difference in making black/brown tea verses green tea is that the latter is not fermented and has oxygen forced into the tea leave mixture to stop the fermentation process. - India is by far the biggest tea production center while Java (Indonesia) tea growing areas are fairly minor compared with Sri Lanka. No pictures or videos can be taken inside the factory itself though. Also and because I visited early Monday morning, there was no production as the pickers don't pick tea on Sunday.