Dilmah Nilagama Single Estate Tea belongs to the Watte Boutique Tea series, a collection of single-garden teas personally selected by Dilmah founder Merrill J. Fernando to represent the most distinctive tea-growing estates in Sri Lanka. Each tea in the series carries the character of one place and one place only, and Nilagama Estate — graded Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe — is among the most singular of them. The tea comes in a cylindrical tin caddy containing twenty Luxury Leaf Bags, with a net weight of 40 grams.
Nilagama Estate sits in the Ratnapura District of Sabaragamuwa Province, a low-grown region at around 800 feet above sea level, positioned between the towns of Pelmadulla and Kahawatte. This is emphatically not highland tea: the low elevation, generous sunshine and the particular soils of the Ratnapura basin shape a cup that is dark, full-bodied and fleshy, with round tannins and a depth that Dilmah's own tasting notes compare to Cabernet Sauvignon grown on flat, sun-drenched land. The estate, which was established in the early twentieth century and introduced tea cultivation in 1924, spans just under 1,000 hectares and is known within the Ceylon tea trade for producing some of the finest low-country leaf. The surrounding district is equally famous for its deposits of blue sapphire — the Ceylon Sapphire — and the gemstone country and the tea country here are one and the same.
The single-estate provenance means that what you taste in the cup is the direct expression of Nilagama's terroir: the fingerprint of its sunshine, soils, rainfall and wind on the leaf's aroma, flavour, texture and colour. Dilmah calls this the Watte philosophy — watte meaning 'garden' in Sinhala — and the commitment to bottling one garden's character without blending is what distinguishes this range from conventional Ceylon tea. The ingredient list is simply pure Ceylon black tea, with nothing else added.
The pack carries the Ceylon Tea Lion Logo, which the Sri Lanka Tea Board issues only to teas that are grown, manufactured and packed entirely in Sri Lanka to the Board's quality standards. It also carries the declarations 'Ethically Made Tea' and 'Boutique Tea Origin Packed', reflecting Dilmah's long-standing policy of packing at source rather than shipping bulk leaf for blending and packing elsewhere. The tea is packed by Dilmah Ceylon Tea Company PLC at their facility in Peliyagoda, Sri Lanka.
This listing is available as a single tin or in packs of two, three or six tins, making it practical to stock a generous supply at home or to send as a considered gift. To brew, bring fresh water to a full 100°C before pouring over the Luxury Leaf Bags, and store the tin in a cool, dry place between uses.
