Ceylon Tea Plantations, Sri Lanka

Few journeys in Sri Lanka are as visually arresting as the passage through the Central Highlands, where rolling hills are blanketed in the lush, manicured greenery of Ceylon tea plantations as far as the eye can see. This short film captures that landscape in its quiet, expansive beauty.

The plantations dominate the scenery from Kandy — the gateway to the Central Highlands — all the way to Badulla, the terminal point of the highland railway line. Whether travelling by train or by road, the drive from Kandy to Badulla passes through seamless stretches of Ceylon tea, widely regarded as the finest tea in the world. The effect is one of continuity: one estate folds into the next, the gradients of the hills giving each plantation its own character while the whole forms an unbroken green canvas that defines this part of Sri Lanka.

A Landscape Shaped by Tea

The Central Highlands owe much of their present character to the tea industry. What might otherwise be wild, forested terrain has been shaped over generations into the ordered rows of tea bushes that today define the region's identity. Travelling through this corridor, it becomes clear just how thoroughly Ceylon tea has woven itself into the land itself.

Kandy to Badulla

The route between Kandy and Badulla is one of the great highland journeys of Sri Lanka. Kandy serves as the natural starting point — a historic city that marks the edge of the lowlands before the road and railway climb steeply into the hills. Badulla, at the far end of the highland railway line, brings the journey to a close. In between, the plantations are an almost constant companion, their neat rows of tea bushes tracing the contours of the hills at every turn.