Damro Labookellie Tea Factory

The Nuwara Eliya tea factory that we visited is called Damro Labookellie Tea Centre (former Mackwoods) and is the oldest tea centre in Sri Lanka. Their tea bushes are replanted every 100 years on over 5,000 hectares of lush tea plantations. In this tea factory, they make white and black tea, while the green tea is processed in another tea factory and then sent to Damro. All the different kinds of teas have different processes of making and you will be able to learn all about these processes if you do a tea factory tour.

The factory tour at Damro is free of charge and ends with delicious tea and cake tasting at the Damro Tea Lounge. While the tour and tea are free, the cake tasting has a small charge and the main profit from the tour comes from tourists buying the tea at the gift shop. You do not need to book the tour in advance and the best way to get here is by organizing the 35min transport with your hotel in Nuwara Eliya.

At Damro, they have approximately 1000 pluckers, 700 of those are women. The workers earn (according to the tour guide) 800 rupees for an 8-hour workday, or 25,000 LKR per month, which is approximately $140. This tea plantation makes roughly 2,000kg of tea per day, every day of the year.

The factory tour will take you through the process of tea plucking, withering (takes out the moisture), rolling, fermentation, firing and sorting/grading.

Interesting fact: When plucking, only the top leaves (two or three leaves and a bud) are used for making the black tea, since the top leaves are healthier and fresher. An employee who is plucking in the plantation will work 8 hours to pluck 20kg of leaves for black tea and wait 8 days before she can return to pluck the young leaves from the same spot again.

After you’re done with the tea factory tour and the tea and cake tasting, head over across the estate and wander around the plantations. Take a look at the leaves up close and walk to the ladies working the fields and observe how fast and meticulous they do the picking!

Damro Labookellie Tea Factory