Sri Lanka Tea Board
The Sri Lanka Tea Board was launched in 1976 by combining several tea-related institutes and departments under the Sri Lankan government. Goal of the SLTB is to promote, regulate and develop the tea industry in the island.
The Sri Lanka Tea Board is responsible for improving the cultivation via helping the production of tea leaves, providing replanting tips, restoring old tea estates and small-holder tea cultivations, and more. They also assist with constructing or helping to construct tea factories and overseeing their operations.
The full cycle of tea production – from planting tea saplings to plucking and end-processing – is observed and appraised thoroughly to ensure high quality, pure Ceylon tea. The board employs staff to watch over the storage, shipping and sales aspects of Ceylon tea. Their experts provide valuable advices on the right blending techniques for Ceylon black tea, infusing additives and suitable storage.
The Sri Lanka Tea Board provides monetary support to horticultural and agricultural specialists who are adept at conducting extension programmes on post-harvest technology, production enhancement, and assistance with regards to chemical and sensory analysis. They facilitate these resource personnel to reach not only the large-scale tea growers but also the small tea holders in the country who are growing Ceylon black tea.
The Sri Lanka Tea Board is responsible for all types of promotional activities. They take the Ceylon Tea brand name to the world via numerous promotional programmes such as exhibitions, seminars and trade fairs. They ensure the buyers are interested and willing to buy more of our tea.
The “Tea Board” as it is known in short term, compiles market data and additional relevant information on the tea industry of Sri Lanka. Any interested party can obtain the statistical data from the tea board website.
The Sri Lanka Tea Board operates under six key departments. Their head office is situated in Colombo 3 and officials there take care of all the functions such as planning, administration and island-wide coordination. Sri Lanka Tea Board hosts a showroom at the same venue to sell good quality, branded tea, along with some tea-inspired goodies.
The promotions arm of the Sri Lanka Tea Board supports different name brands locally as well as internationally. They may join with major suppliers, exporters and distributors to launch marketing and advertising campaigns for Ceylon tea. If any wrong information has gone out, it is their responsibility to correct it. Relevant sales data and market information can be requested from the promotions arm; they carry out retail sales and sampling as part of their marketing activities. An important part of the promotions division is managing the Tea Museum situated in the hill country capital of Kandy.
Tea commissioner's division operates via seven regional offices to help with tea cultivation, manufacturing of finished tea and improve the quality of the Ceylon black tea and other tea products.
An interesting part played by the Tea Board is tea tasting. SLTB tea tasting panel assesses different samples to decide if they meet the right quality. If the samples fail, the brand name owners will not be permitted to use the significant sign of the lion logo. SLTB employs a highly eminent panel of tea tasters in Sri Lanka.
In addition to these, the intelligence division collects, analyses and shares relevant market as well as industry-related data and the export division administers tasks related to exporting such as warehousing and packaging. SLTB laboratories test and certify Ceylon tea according to ISO/IEC17025 standards.