Tea is Experiencing a Melancholy Midyear | Demand for Darjeeling is Down | Harvest Blessing in Badulla, Sri Lanka

HEAR THE HEADLINES – Tea is Experiencing a Melancholy Midyear | Yields are down across the tea lands | China Exports Continue to Expand | Demand for Darjeeling is Down

| FEATURE INTRO – Tea Biz traveled to Badulla, Sri Lanka, in early May to participate in a spring harvest ceremony with hundreds of local tea growers. Each carried a ceremonial plate with intricately arranged tea leaves or a small sack of processed tea as an offering. Then, accompanied by drummers and dancers, they paraded to the courtyard of an ancient temple, where a Buddhist monk blessed their first fruits of the season.

Badulla Harvest Blessing – Badulla is an ancient city of 50,000 located in the remote central mountains of Sri Lanka. It is the capital of Uva Province, where tea is grown on steep hillsides exposed to the northeast and the southwest monsoon winds. Plantations are located between 3000 and 5000 feet above sea level. Here, Thomas Lipton cultivated the world’s most famous tea blend. Every year the city sponsors a parade to receive the blessing of the first fruits of the harvest. On their arrival at the Buddhist temple, celebrants unveiled a brass urn on a long marble altar. Planters then began tearing open small bags of tea and pouring the tea into the urn. Next, pluckers brought fresh leaves, forming a large pile near a statue of the Buddha. The crowd was devoted, joyous, and eager to present their teas before sitting cross-legged in the sand to join a meditation led by the monk. The monk’s harmonic chants calmed the crowd, who joined in. He then spoke of the harvest before blessing the teas on the altar. He explained that Buddhist blessings rely on energetic cultivation, not simply prayer. To be blessed requires practical actions to accumulate merits and good deeds. Buddhists earn merit through mindfulness, meditation, chanting, and performing rituals.

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