Sri Lanka (in the tea business referred to by its older name Ceylon), an island state, located in the Arabian sea South-East from India, is one of the most important world tea producers.

Tea is cultivated here in more than 50 regions and sub-regions, under different geographical, soil and climatic conditions. The most important factor for the growth and consequently the harvest of leaves is the monsoon period, coming to the southern and western parts of the island from May to September and to northern and eastern parts from October to December. In this period, with the exception of the Nuwara Eliya region with its mild rains and harvests taking place practically throughout the whole year, tea is not harvested, the best tea then comes from harvests happening during the dry months when leaves grow slow and therefore their quality markedly improves. 

There is a much higher average yearlong temperature (about 20°C) and humidity in the lowland regions then in the mountain and alpine regions. The Ceylon production differs according to the altitude of the location of a given tea garden from lowland (low-grown) to mountain (mid-grown) and alpine (high-grown) teas. Simply and generally it is possible to say that the alpine regions produce the best quality leaves, while in the lowlands it is more difficult to reach the first quality. Most of the local production is made up of black teas, processed by the orthodox method (and only about 3% by the CTC method), green teas are also quite common, while white teas are rather rare.

The most important and well-known tea regions of Sri Lanka are:

Dimbula, a mountain tea region with gardens at altitudes of 1.200 to 1.800 m. Local climatic and soil conditions are really convenient for production of high-quality high-grown teas; the average temperature is about 16°C and the precipitation amount is also sufficient, whereas the monsoon season is in August and September. The best tea is harvested in January and February.

Nuwara Eliya is the lowest located tea region in Sri Lanka. Its gardens are situated at altitudes of 2.000 to 2.6000 m. Conditions for tea cultivation are similar to Dimbula, only the average temperatures are a bit lower. Harvests take place practically yearlong, but the best teas are produced in the harvest taking place during the drought period in December and January (which can extend to February, when weather is favourable).

Kandy, one of the most important Ceylon tea regions, producing so called mountain tea and it is the biggest district of this island, cultivating tea. Thanks to the steady weather course the teas from individual harvests are quite equable, teas produced from May to September offer a slightly higher quality.