The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel

 

Tea Tasting Menu

 

The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel source their premium teas from the Amba Estate, a community-run social enterprise organic farm nestling at 1000m, high above the Ravana-Ella waterfalls. Applying traditional methods to restore heirloom tea bushes has made their artisanal hand-made teas famous in many of the world’s prestigious shops and restaurants.All teas are served with Mini Cucumber Sandwiches and Bibikkan, the traditional Sri Lankan coconut cake.

 

“Champagne” White Tea Stars

AMBA’s signature White Tea, produced in small quantities and a favourite from Claridge’s Hotel to Noma.  

Like all white teas, Amba puckers pick pluck only the youngest buds from each tea bush.

For the tea stars, they tie together 16 individual buds.  

 

This white tea has a pale golden “champagne” colour and a delicate, sweet floral taste with melon notes.
 

Served In A Martini Glass To Watch The Star Unfurl, with Hot Water Top Up.  $6 Per Person.

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Amba Golden Tips

Amba’s classic loose-leaf, rare White Tea. Their puckers carefully select particularly long buds

which are found only in one area of the farm. These buds are then gently dried,

with no further processing, so as to retain the purest flavours.

 

The golden tips produce a delicate golden liquor and sweet floral flavours,

with hints of honey and citrus notes.

 

Tea, Served In A Glass Teapot with Hot Water Top Up, in 19C Swedish Tea Cups.  $6.99 for 1-2 persons

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Hand-Rolled Tippy Golden Orange Pekoe with Tea Flowers

Tea is often mixed with jasmine, roses, and other flowers, but no-one blends tea with tea-flowers

(because collecting them is so expensive). AMBA carefully pick and gently dry the flowers and blends

them with their finest Hand-Rolled Tippy Golden Orange Pekoe.

 

The result is an incredibly smooth tea, with heavenly honey and almond notes from the golden flowers.
 

A Pot Of Tea, Served In A Glass Teapot with Hot Water Top Up, in 19C Swedish Tea Cups.  $8 for 1-2 persons

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Slow-Withered Pan-Roast Green

A unique is part Green and part Oolong tea: Amba pluck one-leaf-and-bud; then,

unlike most green teas, gently wither the leaves overnight; then cook and roll them in a

wok and kula basket, repeating until the leaves are dry.

 

Buttery caramel and citrus notes layer with soft vegetal and fruity peach accents with a hint of nutty mint.
 

A Pot Of Tea, Served In A Glass Teapot with Hot Water Top Up, in 19C Swedish Tea Cups.   $6 for 1-2 persons   

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Sri Lankan Spiced Chai

AMBA blends their mini-rolled Broken Orange Pekoe with a magic combination of organic

farm-gown spices: cinnamon, cloves, coriander, fennel, ginger, pepper and red chilli.  To make a

distinctively Sri Lankan Chai, cardamom (which dominates Indian chai) is left out and pepper increased.

 

The resulting tea is redolent of mulled wine and makes a perfect hot chai or an invigorating iced-tea.
 

A Tall White Porcelain Mug.  $4 per Person

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Sri Lankan Black Tea-Tasting Menu

A tea tasting menu that takes your through the 7 tea districts of Sri Lanka boasts, each distinctive

due to climate, height, and terrain.

Each Tea is Served In A Separate Glass Teapot with Hot Water Top Up, in 19C Swedish Tea Cups.   $12 for 1 to 2 persons

 

Nuwara Eilya

Rugged, mountainous, bracing, and frosty, this high-altitude (6,000 ft +) year-round low-temperature region is where the country’s finest tea come from: giving a subtle golden hue and a delicate, fragrant bouquet.
 

Uva

A  remote district (4,000-6,000 ft) exposed to the NE & SW monsoons - especially the ‘Cachan’,

a drying cool July ocean wind that closes the leaves, concentrating their cell chemicals

to yield a high balance of flavour - aromatic, mellow, and smooth. 

 

 

Uda Pussellawa

Thinly populated, famed for rare plants and leopards, this sliver of hill country land

(5,000-6,000ft) is bombed by the NE Monsoon; some aeras record rain of 211 day of the year.  

The result is a strong flavoured dark tangy tea with a hint of rose.
 

Fresh Dimbulla

Dimbulla’s complex topography (3,500-5,00 ft) is weathered by cold nights,

misty days, and the SW monsoon, to make the classic English Breakfast tea:

clean, coppery red; full bodied, or delicate.  
 

Kandy

Kandy (2,000-4,000 ft) where the tea industry began in 1867, produces a broad range of teas,

bright, light, and coppery with good strength, flavour and body, heavily influenced by the cool

dry weather of the first quarter of the year.
 

Sabaragamuwa

Home to sapphires, and rubies, Sabaragamuwa’s (0-2,500 ft), numerous small valleys,

streams, and humid tropical rainforest, is watered by the SW monsoon, to make a dark

robustly aromatic yellow-brown tea with hints of caramel.
 

Ruhuna

0-2,000 ft. From coastal plains to the Sinharaja Rain Forest; shielded from most monsoons

and Ruhuna’s long, beautiful leaves turn intensely black on withering to make a

strong, full-flavoured black tea.

 

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