Description
Ceylon Devagiri Silver Needle is a fine white tea from Sri Lanka. Grown and hand crafted at the Devagiri Tea Estate, it has a refined and delicate liquor that is woody, floral and herbaceous. This current batch is from the Spring 2024 harvest.
This unique Ceylonese white tea is an interesting find from a region known for its black tea production. Made from the buds of assamica tea trees, it has a distinctive woody flavour with notes of hay, similar to white teas from the Yunnan Province of China, rather than the floral sweetness found in white teas from Fujian. Even though white tea is not commonly produced in Sri Lanka, the Devagiri Tea Estate have produced a wonderful, high quality, hand processed tea.
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 Silver Needle from Devagiri Tea Estate.
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 Ceylon Silver Needle white tea from the Devagiri Tea Estate has a neat appearance, consisting of fine young silver buds. The liquor produced is light in colour, with a gentle woody aroma. This delicate tea has an initial floral note with the flavour developing to more woody and hay-like notes. There is also a herbal hint of chamomile. It has a creamy mouthfeel with no tannins or astringency, and a lasting comforting aftertaste.
It is best brewed with water at 90°C for 3 minutes and the leaves can be brewed 2+ times.
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