Evergreen Plantations was founded by Mr Aruna De Silva in 1985, a determined youth who ventured into the inspiring business of “Tea Growing and Manufacturing”. His passion for quality and commitment to excellence has been the main reason for his success. This is embodied in every aspect of the plantation; from the tea process, its people and the environment, where smiling faces, colorful landscapes and orderly buildings envelop the work and enthusiasm supported by an able team of loyal workers and committed professionals who have blended perfectly.. to produce the world’s finest tea.

Our Awards Say it All

Evergreen achieved all time record prizes for FF Ex.sp, BOP, FF special and went on to win awards in the Specialty Tea Competitions.

Certified Quality Always

Under the supervision of the Sri Lanka Tea Board, the production was streamlined with the implementation of the Japanese 5S System.

Evergreen plantation is dedicated to providing a superior quality tea manufactured in its state-of-art manufacturing plants. These teas manufactured under the strict hygienic conditions in a fully computerized environment conforms to international statndards, ranking it as a top quality tea manufactured in the south of Sri Lanka.
Bearing testimony to this is the all time prices recorded for teas FF Ex.sp, BOP, FF.special which went on to awards at the Specialty Tea Competitions.

The Deep south of sri lanka also known as Ruhuna is a coastal stretch made up of the districts of Galle, Matara and Hambantota. It is a historically and culturally rich region having been one of the three kningdoms of Sri Lanka, some centuries ago. Ruhuna is also known to have been the sea route of the ancient Silk Road and the center of a Flourishing civilization, today a thriving commercial hub.

From sun drenched golden beaches, clear blue seas, amazing archeological sites, exlusive underwater enchantments, spectacular wildlife, fragrant spice plantations to verdant tea estates that produce the finest spice grown pure Ceylon teas; the Deep South has something special for everyone..

Fringed by the Indian Ocean on one side and the last viable tropical Rain Forest in the country, the Evergreen Sinharaja Rain Forest on the other; the Southern region of the country is situated at an elevation between sea level and 600m. Experiencing hot dry weather characterized by bright sunshine and seasonal monsoon rains it provides the ideal condition for producing a high quality low grown tea.

Evergreen teas further enhanced by the distinctive Rain Forest conditions packed with streams, springs, rivers, waterfalls and the saline breeze that blow from the ocean, is proud to present a good leafy black tea that’s strong, vibrant and deep in color that promises a distinctive taste and aroma.

Evergreen Plantations bordered by the scenic Gin Ganga (River), the Evergreen Sinharaja Rainforest and the Indian Ocean is situated in a naturally conspicuous setting. Being surrounded by nature has made us naturally environment conscious. We understand the important role the environment plays in our lives and are focused on operating the business on a strict environment friendly process that includes converting refuse tea into environmental-friendly fertilizer which nourish and sustains our plantations.

We also ensure that the virgin forests in the vicinity of our plantations remain untouched by de-forestation, industrialization and human settlements. Furthermore we have put in to place a sustainable reforestation programme so as to help conserve the environment for further generations.

Sri Lanka is renowned for the production of best quality teas of the world which is popularly known as “Ceylon Tea” and over the years “Ceylon Tea” has become synonymous with quality tea.

Tea is the third largest agricultural industry in Sri Lanka and most importantly the major foreign exchange earning agricultural product. Sri Lanka’s tea industry represent 1.2 per cent of the GDP and employs approximately one million people, of whom about 600,000 are directly employed.

Tea was first introduced to Sri Lanka (as a commercial planting) in 1867 by the British, and since then was wide spread mainly in the upcountry mountainous areas and continued as large tea plantations. However, during last five decades, tea smallholdings sector, small scale tea cultivations, showed a speedy proliferation contributing immensely to the Sri Lankan tea industry. At present, the statistics shows that smallholdings sector covers 80 per cent of the total tea lands while contributing about 65 per cent of total production. Comparable to tea smallholding sector, large tea plantations, which we call corporate sector, showed a drop of its production and productivity during last few decades and faced few changes in management during that period. At present, the corporate sector is operated under 20 regional plantations companies (RPCs) which their management was vested with the private sector.

Today, Sri Lanka plays a major role in global tea industry and ranks among first three largest tea producers and also the top three tea exporters in the world. Orthodox black tea in a bulk form is the Sri Lanka’s main tea product to date while there is a considerable trend in shifting towards producing CTC type teas and value-added tea products.

Global as wells as Sri Lankan tea industry had undergone major changes during last few decades due to various factors. While there is a reducing trend in demand for tea due to the spreading of instant beverages globally, Sri Lanka faces its own challenges such as high cost of production, low productivity, competition of newly emerging producer countries, concerns over the use of pesticides and pesticide residues of tea, worker shortages etc.

As the consumer safety and worker welfare become big demands all around the world, concepts such as Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), Japanese 5-S, ISO 9001, HACCP certifications are also successfully implemented in Sri Lankan tea industry while securing the use of best traditional practices of tea cultivation and manufacturing.

It is believed that the tea was originated in China as its earliest mention is in a Chinese dictionary of 350 BC. By the middle of the 17th century, tea had invaded Europe and it is accepted that Portuguese were the first to introduced tea into Europe.

It is mentioned that, during 1680s, tea was very popular in England and was drunk only by the very rich as tea was heavily taxed. The custom of afternoon tea in England was first started by Portugal’s Cetherine of Braganza who came to England in 1662.

In 1834 tea returned back to Asia, as British started cultivating tea in their Asian colonies. In Sri Lanka, The first batch of tea seeds was planted at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Peradeniya in December 1839, five years after tea introduced in India. These seeds were obtained from the Calcutta Botanic Gardens and were named as “Indigenous Assam Tea”.

The first commercial tea planting in Sri Lanka was undertaken by James Taylor in 1867, in Loolecondera Estate, Hewaheta, Kandy in order to test tea as an alternative crop for coffee which was showing a declining trend. In parallel to this experiment, in 1869, coffee industry was ravaged by a fungal disease called coffee leaf rust disease wide opening the door for tea plantations in Sri Lanka. Fortunately, tea was well matched with Sri Lankan conditions and caught rapidly. The first consignment of tea was exported in 1872 and by 1884, tea production exceeded the limit of one million lb (454,000 kg).

Till about 1950s, all the tea that was commercially planted in Sri Lanka was from seed but marked a huge turning point with the introduction of vegetative propagation (VP) tea cultivation. In 1958, a tea replanting subsidy scheme was initiated to promote the planting of vegetatively propagated tea cultivars and as a result, it is estimated that more than 50 per cent of the area under tea is now planted with VP tea cultivars. Because the smallholdings sector was wide spread parallel to the VP tea introduction, most of the tea smallholdings are planted almost entirely with high yielding VP cultivars. However, the estate sector has considerable areas still under relatively lower yielding old seedling tea which leads to the low productivity of such tea gardens.

Since the introduction of open economic strategies in early 1980s, the economic environment of the country was favourable for an increase in investments on privately owned tea factories which ultimately promoted the small-scale tea cultivation as a financially lucrative venture because the opportunity to sell green leaf produced by smallholders was secured. Also, the demand for low grown leafy grade teas, which produces a strong brew against upcountry flavour teas, from Middle East and CIS countries (earlier known as Union of Socialist Soviet Russia) has influenced the small-scale tea cultivation to increase, thus leading to an expansion of the smallholder tea sector. Still following the traditional setup large tea estates mainly exists in High and Mid elevation areas while more than 80 per cent of tea smallholdings are confined to the Low country. Due to the significant growth of smallholder sector, the estate (corporate) sector, which previously dominated the Sri Lankan tea industry, is now placed backseat.

Sri Lanka is mainly divided into three main climatic zones, wet, intermediate and dry-zone, based on the rainfall pattern. These zones are further divided into agro-ecological regions which are demarcated on the basis of few factors such as elevation, rainfall expectancy and distribution, soil conditions, terrain and land use pattern etc.

The climatic requirements of tea are satisfied by almost entire wet zone and certain regions in the intermediate zone. Tea growing regions are shown in the following map (after Department of Agriculture, 2003)

We all are very concern about our diet and try our best to take a balance diet as it is proven that a balance diet helps greatly in reducing the risk of diseases. But, most of us ignore the value of beverages we consume which is a very important part of our diet. Recent research had shown that tea is not only a safe beverage for regular consumption but also helps to improve health and reduce the risk of some diseases.

Water soluble components such as polyphenols, which contributes mostly to the taste of tea, and proteins of tea brew are the most important part of tea drink. A typical brew of tea contains 0.35% tea solids in water. The amounts of tea components that come into the cup could vary due to many factors such as type and amount of made tea, temperature and water use for preparing tea brew, duration and method of brewing etc.

Tea becomes important not because it is a rich source of major nutrients such as carbohydrate, protein and fat, but because of the providing of useful amounts of some minerals and vitamins. Also, tea drinking significantly contributes to the daily fluid intake and helps to keep the body hydrated.

In addition to the importance of tea as an ideal drink for the modern day calorie conscious consumers, it becomes an ideal beverage for hypertensive individuals because tea is rich in potassium and low in sodium. Caffeine, well-known as a stimulant, acts on central nervous system to increasing alertness while reducing drowsiness and fatigue feelings.

Tea contains a very high amount of polyphenols (up to 40% of solids in the tea brew) which contributes to the decreasing the risk of many diseases. Tea helps to improve oral health by reducing tooth decay as it contains a significant amount of fluoride also.

Lot of scientific studies done in the dietary importance of tea has proven that tea could be very useful in preventing most of the common degenerative diseases such as heart diseases, stroke and cancer. It is obvious that such degenerative diseases are mainly caused due to the stress made by modern day imbalanced life styles. The anti-oxidant properties of tea brew components helps in reducing the effects of such stress reducing the risk of degenerative diseases as well.

In addition, most of other studies have shown that tea is useful in reducing the risk of diabetes, increasing the important microbial activities in the intestine etc.