Exclusive island breaks to Sri Lanka and the Maldives

Tea Factory

Nestled in the hills 6,800 feet above sea level, close to Nuwara Eliya, the approach to the Tea Factory winds down a dusty track midst rolling fields of lush tea bushes, throughout the year gangs of tea pickers are at work plucking the fresh new tips from the outer leaves of the bush. As your journey continues towards the hotel, it is likely you will receive a smile and a wave from a friendly worker providing a warm welcome to their home in the hills. As the name suggests the hotel is a converted tea factory - inside, many of the originals features have been lovingly retained whilst in the basement there is a small museum of artefacts saved during the restoration process that provide a testament to a bygone era. Within the grounds there is also a small working tea factory where guests can take part in the tea making process, commencing with the picking of the lush tips and ending in the final drying process. The tea factory is unique, located as it is in the heart of a plantation surrounded by the day to day activities of a working tea estate. The accommodation consists of fifty seven rooms built into the factory loft where the leaf drying process used to take place whilst what was once the packing room is now the hotels’ popular residents bar; the kitchens which used to be the engine room remain at the heart.

A potted history

In 1867 a Scotsman by the name of James Taylor first introduced tea to Ceylon, as the island was then known. Within a decade, the plant had become a popular crop covering over 5000 acres. As the number of requests to open tea plantations grew, in the 1870’s the government sold virgin crown land to pioneer planters. Among the bidders was Mr W Flowerdew who became the first proprietary planter of what was to become Hethersett. Mr Flowerdew chose the name Hethersett for his plantation after his Norfolk village in England. In Tamil, the plantation is known as Pupanie, which when translated into English means Flowers of Frost - a picturesque way of describing the cold mist that occasionally descends on Hethersett. By 1881 however, Flowerdew had sold the plantation, which then passed through the hands of different owners, each of whom contributed to its development. The Hethersett tea plantation has played an important role in the development of Sri Lanka's tea industry. The Hethersett factory was the first to fetch the highest price in the world for silver tip tea from Ceylon. This exciting achievement ensured that the Hethersett mark would become synonymous with quality Pure Ceylon Tea. In the mid-1930s a hill was scalped to create a plateau for the new factory, which is the hotel today. When it was first built it was regarded as a remarkable work of engineering. The factory was ingeniously powered by an oil fired engine with flywheels and pulleys to operate the large fans for withering the tea, the rollers and the sifters. By 1968 however, the Hethersett factory had passed its heyday and was finally closed in 1973. It stood disused, among the surrounding tea bushes, a silent monument to the great days of Pure Ceylon Tea. In 1992 the present owner happened to observe the tea factory through the mist covered hills. Immediately he had a vision of transforming the superbly sited factory shell into a unique, luxury hotel, an idea brought to realisation through the talent of architect Nihal Bodhinayake. Now restored, the Hethersett Tea Factory is poised to regain its former glory, this time not for its tea, but as a successful and innovative hotel.