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Sri Lankan Black Loose Leaf Black Tea

4 reviews
$25.99
$25.99
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44p per cup

Style

A rich loose leaf black tea from an independent family farm in the cool mountains of Nuwara Eliya.

Tasting Notes

A pure, loose leaf black tea with flavours of burnt sugar, hay, butterscotch and fresh cardamon pods. Smooth tannins and delicate floral top notes. Equally delicious enjoyed on its own or with milk. You might be surprised that the pale golden cup can handle milk, but although the colour may be light, the flavour is rich and robust. A decent dollop of milk reveals notes of marzipan and butterscotch.

Cost Per Cup

44p per cup based on 2.5g of tea per 150ml of water and 2 infusions.

Origin

Nuwara Eliya District, Central Province, Sri Lanka

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Recommended Infusion Guide

  • Quantity

    Use 0.1 oz of leaf per 5.1 fl oz of water.

  • Temperature

    For the optimum infusion use 185°F water. To take with milk, please use water at 212°F. We recommend trying both!

  • Time

    Infuse for 60 - 90 seconds if having black, or 3 - 4 minutes if having with milk.

  • Infusions

    You can infuse this tea at least twice at lower temperatures, and once if having with milk. With each careful infusion, different subtleties of flavour are revealed.

More infusion tips

How to infuse your tea is very personal, and these are just our recommendations based on experience. Please experiment with these variables to your heart's delight. These are our recommendations, not hard and fast rules. The most delicious tea is the one you love.

Our guide uses a standard tea cup size (150ml/5.5 oz) as a measure, please adjust the quantity of leaf accordingly for less or more water. Our whole loose leaves are of such a high quality that you can infuse our teas at least twice, and the second infusion is often better than the first, with different flavours revealed as the leaf softens. If you prefer your tea stronger, add more leaf, don’t leave it for longer (this will just make it bitter).

The Diyanillakelle tea garden extends over a 225-acre expanse of land in Lindula within the Nuwara Eliya District of Sri Lanka. The garden is classified under the Up-country Wet Zone agro-ecological region, situated at 4,500ft altitude and the average temperature is between 22°C to 26°C.

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Diyanillakelle has an extensive history of tea cultivation spanning 150 years. Having been run for a significant period of time by its original Scottish planters, the garden passed hands through successive Sri Lankan owners until in 2012 when Ananda took over.

“

"The fields down to every tea bush have been given careful attention. The factory has been rebuilt, refitted, and transformed to a high quality and low quantity production line featuring custom made troughs and rollers and electric dryers. Branching away from producing mass produced tea to high quality low volume tea also means we can ensure that our workers enjoy better working conditions - from reduced working hours to vastly improved pay that is not linked to plucking volumes. We have also spent time upskilling our workers on fine plucking, and some are now spending time in the factory as apprentices learning the fine tea manufacturing processes. Furthermore, all our tea sales now include a 'community elders provision' of $5 per kilo to establish and run a facility to care for retired/elderly members of our garden community. Diyanillakelle is now a sustainable and ethical agro-enterprise focused only on producing the highest quality tea that can compete with the best tea in the world."

”

- Ravindu, Ananda's son-in law

We have been working with Ravindu for many years to bring you this wonderful tea. The farm Ananda took over was a conventional tea farm that they set about transforming. Conventional is used to describe farming practices that use industrial pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers. It is our fervent hope that this is not our future; that convention - the way in which things are usually done - becomes something far more sustainable for the land and the people that live and work on it to survive and thrive into the future(please see our section on organic tea farming here). Ananda, Ravindu and the team at Diyanillakelle have the same vision.

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He wanted the farm to be environmentally, socially and economically viable for the community. Across Sri Lanka and India high-volume, conventional tea farming is becoming increasingly unsustainable. International commodity tea prices keep dropping, forcing farms into producing more industrial and lower grade teas, which in turn become increasingly less valuable. It’s a vicious circle that forces farms into low wages and communities into poverty.

Like Ananda and Ravindu, this is a cycle we want to break.

We work with tea farms across the world and are able to share best practices, skills and expertise between our collaborative tea community. Nayan, the wonderful woman tea farmer who makes our Indian Cloud tea shared some of her story of creating an organic tea garden and put Rav in contact with a brilliant tea maker, Nalin who had helped her in the past.

With the help of the independent tea community, stepping outside conventional "Big Tea" plantations he and his family are painstakingly shaping a beautiful future.

They have put their faith in a sustainable future that needs all of our support. But what a delicious way to change the world, a little bit, for the better.

It was not just the land that Ananda, Ravindu and the rest of the family converted, but the craft of tea making.

With the help of global experts, a brilliant team on the ground, and a huge amount of hard work and experimentation they are now making much smaller amounts of high quality tea, rather than trying to churn out large amounts for diminishing returns.

This puts a huge amount of faith in the tea drinking community - YOU. No pressure!

After many years of development and investment, heartache and tremendous hard work - we are so proud to bring you this delicious tea.

Shipping, delivery & more...

Shipping Information

UK Shipping Rates
FREE UK Tracked when you spend £30 or more
FREE UK Express - Next Day* when you spend £60 or more
UK Tracked - Two Day Tracked £3.99
UK Express - Next Day* Tracked £5.49
UK Express - Next Day* Courier from £8.49

USA Shipping Rates
FREE DHL Tracked/DHL Plus Tracked when you spend $30 or more
DHL Tracked/Plus Tracked from £4.99
USPS Priority from £8.99
FedEx Home Delivery from £16.99

Europe Shipping Rates
FREE Europe Tracked when you spend £50 or more
Europe Tracked Delivery from £4.99
Europe Express Courier from £21.99

Canadian Shipping Rates*
FREE DHL International Tracked when you spend $40 CAD or more
DHL International Tracked from £5.99
FedEx Courier Delivery from £34.99

Worldwide Shipping Rates
FREE Worldwide Tracked when you spend £50 or more
Worldwide Tracked Delivery from £5.99
ROW Express Courier from £20.49

*Subject to next day cutoff and postcode location. Availability of rates depends on location and order weight. For a complete overview of our shipping rates please see our delivery page. All prices quoted in GBP and will be converted to your local currency if available.

IOSS for EU Orders

Rare Tea Company uses IOSS (Import One Stop Shop) for EU orders placed on the website.

How IOSS works and how it is applied on the website.

The IOSS scheme allows us to collect VAT during checkout on your behalf, meaning that no VAT is due when your order is assessed by your local authority.

  • If the combined value of the products in your cart are equal to or below €150 (excluding tax), VAT will be included at the point of sale and you should not be charged any fees when your order arrives.*
  • Once the €150 threshold is exceeded VAT will be removed from the items in your cart and from this point onwards when your order ships you will be liable for local VAT, duties and import fees.**

To avoid unnecessary import charges, keep your orders under €150 (excluding tax and shipping). Tax is included on all applicable products at Rare Tea - if your order is applicable for IOSS tax will be shown at the checkout.

Valid for IOSS

Not valid for IOSS

Your order confirmation and shipping confirmation emails will also confirm whether your order is valid for IOSS.

As with all complex shipping methods, the IOSS system isn't foolproof, and orders that are valid for IOSS are occasionally incorrectly charged VAT by customs.

If an order shipped via IOSS and that you have paid VAT on does get incorrectly assessed by customs, please don't worry. It's usually just a mistake that can be fixed by contacting customs and explaining that the order shipped via IOSS with VAT already paid.

If this does happen to you then we suggest the following:

  1. Please contact us before speaking to customs.
  2. We will double check that the order was valid for IOSS.
  3. We will provide a VAT receipt and a shipping label as evidence.
  4. Contact your local customs for assistance, using the shipping label as evidence.
  5. If all else fails we will attempt to get our shipping provider to investigate, but this process can take a while.

*Please note - this does not include any applicable duty charged when the item is cleared. Within the EU tea is free from duty, but your region might have a different rules for non-tea items such as tins and teaware. Any duty charged is payable by you, the customer before delivery via your local customs authority.
**In special cases where custom fees have been unexpected we have retroactively refunded these in select cases. As of the 15th February 2023 (the start of IOSS) we have discontinued this process.

What is IOSS?

The Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) is the electronic portal businesses can use since 1 July 2021 to comply with their VAT e-commerce obligations on distance sales of imported goods.

Up until the 1st July 2021, no import VAT has to be paid for commercial goods of a value up to EUR 22. New VAT eCommerce rules abolished this provision as of 1st July 2021. Thus, from 1 July 2021, all commercial goods imported into the EU from a third country or third territory is subject to VAT irrespective of their value.

What is IOSS for?

IOSS allows suppliers and electronic interfaces selling imported goods to buyers in the EU to collect, declare and pay the VAT to the tax authorities, instead of making the buyer pay the VAT at the moment the goods are imported into the EU as it was previously the case (for products over 22 EUR).

What are the advantages of IOSS?

IOSS facilitates the collection, declaration and payment of VAT for sellers making distance sales of imported goods to buyers in the EU. The IOSS also makes the process easier for the buyer, who is only charged at the time of purchase, and therefore does not face any surprise fees when the goods are delivered. If the seller is not registered in the IOSS, the buyer has to pay the VAT and usually a customs clearance fee charged by the transporter.

What countries does IOSS apply to?

IOSS applies to the EU member states of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

It does not apply to the EEA.

How much tax will I get charged?

Tax will be charged at the base VAT rate of the shipping country.

Full details of IOSS can be found on the European Comission website.

Any questions? Please get in touch!

Send us a message using the form below, or call +44 (0) 207 681 0115 (9am - 5pm GMT, Monday - Friday).

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