2 oz. (25 cups) or 8 oz. (100 cups)

This is a brisk, full bodied black tea with a story. Instead of being processed by machinery, it is pounded in a vangedi stone mortar—the way estate workers make their tea at home. The name comes from an old practice of workers secretly bringing home raw leaves from the fields to make their own tea this way. It has notes of brown sugar, malt, orange peel, and dark chocolate.

Brewing instructions
Amount: 1 teaspoon of loose tea per cup of water
Temperature: 205 ̊ (Just off the boil)
Steep time: 3 minutes

About Our Sri Lankan Tea

Formerly called Ceylon, the island of Sri Lanka has produced some of the finest tea in the world for the last 150 years. While the tea industry survived Sri Lanka’s 30-year-long civil war intact, it has also bolstered the entire country’s continued economic recovery since the war's end in 2009.

Our Ceylon tea comes from Amba Estate, a small tea garden and organic farm nestled at 3,300 feet, high above the Ravanna-Ella waterfalls in the Uva mountains of Sri Lanka. Working with the local community, its 30 full-time workers produce a range of artisanal, hand-rolled teas. Amba’s products are made using local ingredients according to the season to create a unique combination of flavor, color and aroma. And unlike almost any other tea estate, Amba shares 10 percent of its revenue with employees. In a country recovering from a decades-long civil war, Amba has another rare distinction: Its staff is nearly equally split between Sinhalese and Tamil workers.