Tea growing at Diyanillakelle dates back to the first wave of tea cultivation in Sri Lanka over 150 years ago. In the early days, the garden was run by Scottish planters. Since then, it has passed through the hands of several Sri Lankan owners, and today is run by Ananda and her son-in-law Ravindu.

The latest chapter in the estate’s history is one of restoration and renewal. Five years ago, Ananda set about revitalising the garden to address dwindling output and stagnant tea prices.  The garden has gone through a deep transformation: the fields down to every tea bush have been given careful attention from pruning to bush sanitation to produce exceptional raw materials and is slowly being converted to organic cultivation. The factory has been rebuilt, refitted, and transformed to a high quality and low quantity production line.

Improving the quality of the leaf and production process to produce a better quality of tea, the sort that sells for high prices, offers Diyanillakelle one way out of the falling commodity tea prices that has affected producers of tea in Sri Lanka in recent decades.