Memorable Personal Experience with Mackwoods Labookellie Tea Estate

Mackwoods Labookellie Tea Estate in Nuwara Eliya is one of the most mysterious, awe-inspiring landscapes I’ve ever seen.

I wanted to visit the place on our way to Nuwara Eliya but my friends wanted to on our way back to Colombo as we were a bit hungry. We wanted to go to Nuwara Eliya and have our Lunch.

Left to Right: Tharidu, Our Van Driver, Dillan, Diluk, Malith and Myself

Mackwoods’ tea factory at Labookellie

Mackwoods’ tea factory at Labookellie is on the A5 road up to Nuwara Eliya from Kandy.

You can’t really miss it, sitting on a bend on the road, all green and white.

It’s surrounded by swirling rows of plantations, the lush green hillsides all around striated by tea bushes with colourful dots here and there – the tea pickers of Plantation. Mackwoods Labookellie Tea Centre, situated approximately 1500 meters above sea level.

Mackwood Tea Plantation Museum.

This is the entire Landscape of the Mackwood Tea Plantation.

Tea Centre of MackWoods

This Tea Centre has been expanded and refurbished to give its many visitors & customers better service in a more comfortable setting. I am pretty sure, they have a very good team to maintain the Brand of Mackwood as they have invested a lot of things to experience the Mackwood Brand. I am pretty sure, if somebody comes to this Tea Centre, they never buy any other Brand other than Mackwood Brand :-).

When you enter into the Tea Centre, everybody wants to see the “Mackwood” Logo clearly.

If you stand in front of the fence, you this MackWoods Logo. It looks like the “Hollywood” logo :-). When you stand in front of this fence, you can see the beauty of the Landscape.

Today, Mackwoods manages 27,000 acres of plantations.

The right side of Mackwood Tea Plantation.

I am NOT very sure about the name of this river but it adds colours to the landscape of Mackwoods.

The left side of Mackwood Tea Plantation

This is the history of Mackwoods if you are interested. founded in 1841 by Captain William Mackwood, Mackwoods has the distinction of being the second oldest Mercantile Firm in Sri Lanka.

The Company remained in the Mackwoods family until 1956 when the ownership passed on to Mr N.S.O. Mendis, a visionary Sri Lankan entrepreneur(I wanted to do a research of this ownership change :-))

Most Tea Plantation factories offer guided visits, which include walks through the tea fields, tours of the factories themselves and, of course, complimentary tea tastings. Macwoods also provides factory guided visit and do not hesitate to ask if you are interested.

Summary

If you are a budget traveller, You can take on a local bus from Nuwara Eliya town. There is a bus station with a ‘Labookellie’ sign and a small shuttle bus takes you there. Buses are pretty regular and cost us about 0.25 USD each way.

Just tell the conductor where you want to get down and he will tell you when to get off the bus.

For everybody, this entire tea factory tour is totally FREE.

If somebody tells you that you need to pay for this, you can inform the management about that. It is totally free. But if you drink tea, you have to pay. please be aware of this.