Cinnamon Wood Smoked Tea from AMBA Estate (Organic)

This smoked black tea is a new addition from one of our favorite tea partners, AMBA Estate in Sri Lanka.  They use the cinnamon wood from their very own cinnamon harvests to smoke their small batch black tea.  The black tea base is fairly robust so this is an unusual smoked tea with a good amount of oomph to it.  The smoke is pretty gentle and is well-integrated with the tea.  Overall, it's quite smooth and cozy with the special kind of sweetness that smoked teas can bring.  And, since it's from AMBA, you can bet that it's clean and organic. 

AMBA Estate, at about 1000 meters elevation in the Uva Mountains of Sri Lanka, is a very unique tea making operation.  The Estate is a re-claimed and regenerated abandoned tea farm that has been organically certified since 2009.  Many of the plants, both small and large leaf varieties, are old and grown from seed.  The plants are fertilized by a herd of rescued cows and are otherwise free from pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

AMBA is community run, not plantation based like most other tea enterprises in Sri Lanka.  Their core mission is to create economic opportunity for the people in their community and as such they offer 10% revenue sharing to their staff in addition to their regular wage.  Additionally, they support their staff (and the Estate's neighbors) in developing their own businesses from their handicrafts or locally grown and made comestibles.

2023 harvest