Description

Amba tea garden is nestled into the hillside at 1000m above sea level, high above the Ravana-Ella waterfalls in the Uva mountains of Sri Lanka. Working with the local community, this small settlement produces a small but wonderful range of artisanal teas. Amba is one of only a handful of artisanal tea producers in Sri Lanka today and all of their teas are hand-made on the farm, using only carefully selected finest leaves and buds.

This very rare tea with flowers from the tea plant (Amba Tea Garden only produces about 30kg a month and we need to pre-order six months in advance) uses the Amba Orange Pekoe as its base. The pluckers who collect the leaves only gather about a 1kg of leaves and buds a day.  After withering the leaves overnight the pluckers then roll the leaves they picked by hand. The fragrant dry leaf has hints of caramel and a light citrus aroma. Once brewed, the liquor is a copper gold in the cup and has complex notes of dried fruit, sweet meadow grass, citrus and a hint of classic Uva wintergreen. The flavours in this great tea are enhanced by the heavenly honey and almond floral notes supplied by yellow-gold tea flowers. Similar to a strongly oxidised oolong in character, this tea can be infused several times.