Ceylon Breakfast - Loose Leaf Tea

Our award-winning Ceylon Breakfast Black Tea made by Tea Master Perirs makes a brisk, copper-coloured brew with subtle spicy notes, a rich mouthfeel and a warm caramel aroma – and provides a full-bodied but lighter alternative to our popular English Breakfast blend. 

The distinctive character of this BOPF (Broken Orange Pekoe Fannings) black loose leaf tea is due to its small dark brown leaves, which are grown in the acclaimed Ratnapura district of south-central Sri Lanka. Harvested in a low-elevation tea garden 130m above sea level, the leaves are small and dark gold when dried, delivering the beautiful caramel aroma and brisk flavour that are hallmarks of teas from Ratnapura.

Ratnapura receives more than 2,500mm of rainfall each year, which helps to ensure lush green buds every season and adds to the bold character of teas grown here, including our Ceylon Breakfast Black Tea blend.

Made to orthodox production methods at Nawalakanda tea factory, this breakfast tea has a more robust flavour than some of the higher elevation Sri Lankan styles you might try (such as our Orthodox Ceylon Nuwara Eliya tea), but if you're after an authentic Ceylon brew, this is it.

At The Tea Makers, we pride ourselves on dealing directly with many of Sri Lanka’s best producers, and this luxury tea is no exception. Nawalakanda has wonderful, strong ties to the local community and firm relationships with almost 6,000 smallholder farmers. This investment in the community is just one of the many reasons we love working with them.

Need another reason to pop a caddy of our Ceylon Breakfast brew in your pantry? It might surprise you to learn that the levels of bacteria - and virus-fighting antioxidants in two cups of black tea are equivalent to those in one glass of red wine, or seven glasses of orange juice, or 20 glasses of apple juice!

The history of Ceylon tea

This single-origin tea taps a cultural heritage that dates back to 1857, when Sri Lanka’s tea gardens were first planted by British colonists. Settling in the country’s fertile central highlands, the Victorian tea pioneers converted vast tracts of forest to agriculture, quickly discovering the suitability of Camellia sinensis to the region’s rich soils, varied elevation and monsoonal microclimates. Ranging from cool and wet to warm and dry, these microclimates give Ceylon tea its unique character and diversity. They also helped cement the success of an industry that by the late 1920s Sri Lanka, headed by the Sri Lanka tea board, was exporting some 100,000 tonnes of tea to the world.

Alternatives to this delicious loose leaf tea

If you like our Ceylon Breakfast Black Leaf Tea’s brisk, bold style, try drinking it as an iced tea, alternatively do try our other classic breakfast brews: English Breakfast, Assam Breakfast and Irish Breakfast, they make for perfect all-day drinking – either black for a vegan tea or with a generous splash of milk.

There’s more to Ceylon black tea than breakfast. Read about how to make a good cold brew, ideal for the afternoon, in our Tea Journal. For those who prefer to skip the caffeine kick altogether, look to our Decaffeinated Ceylon Black Tea.