Damro Labookellie Tea Centre

Damro Labookellie’s history predates James Taylor’s celebrated 1867 tea plantings at Loolecondera by more than two decades, having been first commissioned in 1841 by Captain William Mackwood, whose firm still ranks as the second-oldest mercantile company in Sri Lanka.

Older Than Ceylon’s ‘Official’ Tea Origin Story

While James Taylor’s 1867 plantings at Loolecondera Estate are generally credited with launching Ceylon’s commercial tea industry, Labookellie’s own history stretches back even further, first commissioned in 1841 by Captain William Mackwood. Mackwood’s firm is recognised today as the second-oldest mercantile company operating in Sri Lanka, giving the estate a genuinely deep institutional pedigree. Damro has since acquired the factory and estate from Mackwoods, though the site is still often referred to by its earlier name, Mackwoods Labookellie, particularly among longtime visitors and local guides.

The estate’s scale is considerable: spanning over 5,000 hectares of tea plantation and employing more than a thousand pluckers, Labookellie is one of the largest and most visited tea tourism operations in the Nuwara Eliya region, its tea bushes periodically rejuvenated across generations while some plants on the estate remain more than 150 years old, still productive despite their age.

A More Commercial, More Comprehensive Experience

Compared to smaller, more compact operations like Pedro Tea Estate, Labookellie offers a noticeably larger-scale visitor experience. Guided tours are free and cover the full tea manufacturing process, from plucking through rolling, fermentation, drying and grading, and visitors can walk directly through the surrounding tea fields to watch experienced pluckers working at a pace that takes years to develop. Some visitors and guides describe the estate as feeling more commercial than smaller operations, reflecting both its larger scale and its popularity as a standard stop on Nuwara Eliya tour itineraries.

Visiting Tips

• No advance booking is typically needed; guides are assigned to visitors as they arrive.
• Allow time to walk through the tea fields themselves, not just the factory, for the fullest sense of the estate’s scale.
• Purchase tea directly from the estate shop, a good source for genuinely fresh, high-quality Ceylon tea.
• Combine with nearby Ramboda Falls and Bluefield Tea Gardens for a fuller Hill Country tea day.

A Living Link Across Nearly Two Centuries

What makes Labookellie genuinely remarkable isn’t just its age but its continuity. Tea bushes planted more than 150 years ago are still being harvested on the estate today, meaning the leaves that end up in a visitor’s cup may come from plants that predate not just Sri Lankan independence but the entire 20th century. That kind of agricultural continuity is unusual even by the standards of an industry built around long-term plantation cycles, and it gives a visit here a different texture from newer or more heavily modernised tea operations elsewhere in the Hill Country. Walking through fields worked continuously since the 1840s, watching pluckers using techniques passed down across many generations, offers a tangible sense of just how long Ceylon tea has been shaping both the landscape and the livelihoods of this part of Sri Lanka.

Where It Sits on the Map

Frequently Asked Questions

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