Ceylon Devagiri Orange Pekoe

Description

Ceylon Devagiri Orange Pekoe is a traditional OP1 grade black tea from Devagiri Tea Estate, located in Galle District, Southern Province, Sri Lanka. This particular Orange Pekoe features a strong, deep character with stony and fruity notes and lasting tannins on the aftertaste. This current batch is from the Spring 2024 harvest.

You can find out what Orange Pekoe is in our article here.

The tea farmers in Sri Lanka have had a difficult recent past, with the government encouraging more farmers to switch to CTC (crush, tear, curl) methods of tea production in the 1990’s, trying to capture the huge CTC market. CTC tea is normally used to fill tea bags, so the move was away from quality and onto quantity. This switch from orthodox methods was a big failure as Sri Lankan teas could not compete with cheaper CTC teas from other large and at the time up-and-coming CTC tea growing countries, such as India, Kenya and Malawi. This move also damaged the reputation and quality of Sri Lankan tea, resulting in many farmers choosing to eventually abandon CTC production in favour of orthodox methods of tea production. Now Sri Lanka is rightly regaining its status as a major exporter of high quality orthodox teas and there are more and more interesting and exciting producers of these Ceylon teas, such as this Ceylon Orange Pekoe from Devagiri Tea Estate.

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Devagiri Tea Estate is located in Yakkalamulla Village next to Kottawa rainforest, making the soil naturally rich in natural nutrients. Being located in a valley, it benefits from highly oxygenated air from the rainforest as well as warm air currents from the Indian Ocean that is only 9 miles away. The first tea plants at Devagiri Tea Estate were planted in the 1930’s, still under the British rule. A year before Sri Lanka’s independence, the tea estate was bought by Francis Nanayakkara who is the grandfather of Rosh, one of the current owners of the estate. Over time Devagiri built a reputation for producing some of the finest teas in the south of Sri Lanka. During political turmoil in Sri Lanka in 2020 the tea estate fell on hard times and there was talk of the family selling the estate, most likely to be used for other agricultural uses. This would have had a devastating effect on the community of almost 100 people living and working on the estate.

Rosh (Francis’s granddaughter) and her partner Mike were struck by the potential injustice while visiting the estate in 2022. But they also saw an opportunity to develop a new business model that relied less on market volatility and traditional multi-level supply chain. They raised investment and started creating a business that puts the people who produce the tea at the forefront of the business while maintaining best environmental practices. Their ethos also lies in enabling the consumer to be able to trace the tea to a specific terroir, and make an informed decision on where their tea comes from and the sort of business they are supporting with their purchase.

This Orange Pekoe black tea from Devagiri Tea Estate has neat, dark leaves. The liquor produced is a strong, dark amber colour. This tea is fruity with notes of stone fruits, such as plums. It has a mineral aftertaste with lasting tannins. Overall this tea is reminiscent of high grade English Breakfast tea with a refreshing, mouthwatering finish.

It is best brewed with water at 90°C for 3-4 minutes and the leaves can be brewed around 2 times.