Ingredients · Tea

Ceylon Black Tea

Camellia sinensis · Theaceae (tea family)

Ceylon Black Tea
Bright, brisk and citrus-edged, with a golden-orange cup — the tea that makes a blend taste lively rather than heavy. Sri Lanka's tea board recognises seven growing regions, and altitude does most of the work: Nuwara Eliya at 1,868 m gives the palest and most delicate cup of all, Dimbula's high-grown estates give a mellow golden one, and the lower regions give something fuller. Sixteen products here are built on it, most of them because a fruit or citrus flavouring needs a base that will not bury it.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partLeaf
KindTea
CaffeineContains caffeine
Where it is fromSri Lanka
TasteBright, brisk and citrusy; golden-orange in the cup, with a clean finish
How to brew it
  • 212°F / 100°C
  • 3 to 5 minutes
  • the iced-tea base

How to use it

Boiling water, 3 to 5 minutes. The classic iced-tea base, because it stays clear and bright when cold where a heavier tea goes cloudy. Takes lemon better than milk. Ceylon green, first exported only in 1982 and mostly made in Uva from Assamese stock, is fuller and nuttier than a Chinese green.

With food

Lemon and lime. Scones and lemon tarts. Cucumber sandwiches. Mango and pineapple. Light cake. Rice and curry.

With spices

Cardamom and cinnamon. Ginger. Lemongrass. Bergamot. Vanilla.

With tea

Blended with Assam for a breakfast tea — Assam for the body, Ceylon for the brightness. The usual base for Earl Grey.

Its story

Where it comes from

The central highlands of Sri Lanka. The Tea Board names seven regions — Nuwara Eliya, Dimbula, Uva, Uda Pussellawa, Kandy, Sabaragamuwa and Ruhuna. The Lion logo marks tea that is 100% pure Ceylon and packed in Sri Lanka to Tea Board standards. In 2019 Sri Lanka was the world's fourth-largest producer and third-largest exporter. Estate names on our products are the supplier's claim; we have no batch record to confirm them.

What happened

Ceylon was a coffee island until coffee leaf rust destroyed the crop from 1869. James Taylor, a Scot who had sailed from London at seventeen, had already planted about twenty acres of tea at Loolecondera in 1867 using Assam hybrid seed; he built a factory in 1872 and sent the first shipment to the London auction in 1875. Exports went from 23 pounds to 22,900 tonnes by 1890. Taylor was dismissed by the estate management in 1891 when the big companies took over and died the following year; his well, stone seat and tea kiln are now protected monuments. The labour is the other half. From 1827, at a planter's request, the governor recruited workers from around Tirunelveli, Tiruchi, Madurai and Tanjore. They landed at Mannar, were quarantined at Matale and sent on to the estates, where they lived in line rooms; many died in their first months. By 1946 they were 780,000 people, 11.7% of the population. The Ceylon Citizenship Act of 1948 required proof that one's father was born in Ceylon — about 5,000 qualified, and more than 700,000 were made stateless, and stripped of the vote the following year. Citizenship came back only in stages, the last of it in 2003.

On the shelf with it

Sold on its own, and in these blends.

Every ingredient in the shop

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