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Sri Lanka, one of the world's largest tea producers, home of the highly regarded pure Ceylon tea and the teas served aboard Viking Ocean and Expedition ships all come from one of the best of those producers -a family owned business with 36 tea estates across the island - Dilmah Tea.

Dilmah Tea gets its name from two Brothers, Dilhan and Malik Fernando, whose charismatic father, Merrill, founded the company in 1988.

And so I'm starting my journey by traveling to the island's capital, Colombo to learn more about tea from one of those sons.

So these are the teas onboard our Viking ships.

Absolutely, Yes.

And how did you, how did you choose them? 'cause you have a lot of different teas.

Is there, did you come up with a, sort of, an idea of... to give an overall view of the sort of Sri Lankan tea possibilities or what?

That, but also looking at the lifestyles of the guest on board.

So here you have intensity.

If you've got a guest who's having a chocolate dessert with certain intensity or maybe even a steak or spicy chicken dish.

There you have a beautiful pairing.

Not only is it elegant on its own, but it's a beautiful pairing.

But then if you've got a guest who's having something light, maybe, salad in the afternoon, you have this wonderful jasmine.

And so that has a, (That's my favorite.) Yeah.

It has a beautiful fragrance.

And it's a, it's a natural jasmine.

You're getting most of your...it's a very gentle jasmine.

And so you have tea for different occasions, different moods, sitting, enjoying the cruise and... or having it with a meal.

You talk about it with such passion.

I love it.

It's wonderful.

To find the source of Dilhan's passion, I left Colombo behind and took a train into the heart of Sri Lanka's tea country and to one of Dilmah's most picturesque tea estates.

Here I met up with Bernard, who had agreed to show me around the tea plantation and factory to see just how the precious leaves are picked, processed, and graded.

When you handpick your tea, you can select your leaves.

We harvest our tea plants every 12 to 15 days.

People wonder how we do this.

Well, I'll just tell you how, when a lady comes to her plant here, if she has done her work well in the previous 12-day cycle, there would be about five generations of shoots, harvestable shoots, emerging from the surface of the plant.

Now she's only going to take the largest generation that is ready today.

Okay.

And she'll leave the ensuing generation, the smaller ones, (Mm-hmm.) which should keep emerging next week, then the next week, generation next week and next week.

And so we can do this 365 days of the year.

Bennett, where are we?

What is this?

Well, we Are in, It's very beautiful.

I know.

This is a place called Dunkeld It's a Scottish name because when the British came and, started growing tea, most of the people initially were from Scotland.

Can we go and see inside?

Yeah, of course.

Let's go.

Thank you.

So the leaves come from the estate.

From the field. and, this is the first... this is the beginning of the process.

Exactly.

And how long do they stay here?

It can take anything from eight to 12 hours, depending on climate, on weather.

If it's very dry, -eight hours, if it's wet, the leaves...it's raining humidity is high, it's going to take longer.

So what is happening here?

The leaves are being...So we are going to rupture the cells first.

Very important.

I love this machine.

Yeah.

Still works.

Beautiful machine.

It's very quiet.

It's not noisy.

Well, if your machine bearings are in good order, like they say, they don't make 'em like they used to.

No, they don't.

They don't.

Once the leaves are broken and the cells ruptured to release their enzymes, any remaining clumps are shaken apart.

Now I know why you said stand back.

Now that it's completely broken up, the tea leaves are left to ferment for two to three hours and then sent for a further drying.

But before it can be packed, any remaining fragments of fiber must be removed.

And only then is it sorted by size, leaving three grades of pure black Ceylon tea.

This machine is a sorter or a screen.

It has so many, you know, the numbers here indicate the number of perforations in an inch.

The mesh there.

So as the tea goes down, it gets smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.

This is the rough, the mixed stuff that came from the dryer, once we clean it and grade into these three sizes of tea.

Right.

This is the largest broken orange pekoe.

This is the next size - broken orange pekoe fanning -a little smaller.

And the last, number one, which is the smallest.

So basically this is going to be stronger than this.

I wanted to know more about the founder of Dilmah Merrill J Fernando and his particular business philosophy.

So I met up with his son Malik, to talk about his father and the legacy he left behind.

I mean, he still is the beating heart of this company, simply because, whether it's tea or chocolate or coffee, generally all of the brands are in the consuming country.

So he said, no, I want to add value at source here in Sri Lanka, and I want to give back.

So we are the most significant foundation, charitable foundation in the country.

And what he said is, look, kindness.

Do what we can. 'cause in our part of the world, governments cannot do everything they should be doing so businesses have to step forward.

So in everything we do, we look to see what positive impact we can create through whatever initiatives we do, whether it is social justice, helping the local communities and our team members, or whether it is environmental stewardship.

So that's the legacy that my father left, and he was recognized for that.

There was even an award he got from the Nobel Committee in Oslo, which, you know, he was particularly proud of this.

He should be.

Yeah.

He got award on his birthday in May 2015, And he went to Oslo.

He was in Oslo.

Yeah.

There were a thousand people in the town hall.

And they all stood up and sang happy birthday.

Oh.

In the Oslo Town Hall.

And he said that was the happiest day of his life.

Oh, that's so lovely.

So he legacy is what drives my brother and I in our tea business, in our hotel business and the other businesses that we operate.

Back out in the tea hills of central Sri Lanka, I went to the Craighead estate where I had arranged to meet Anura, and we began talking about a type of tea, quite different from the black or green teas and made from the youngest tenderest buds of the tea plant - white tea.

This is what you use in white tea.

White tea, Yes.

So this would be cut with scissors.

Yes.

And then gently, very gently dropped..

Dropped onto a tray.

And why is it gently dropped onto a tray?

Because at this stage it is very, very tender and it's very easy to damage it.

And the moment you damage the leaf, fermentation starts.

It is ideal If fermentation does not start at any point until you are ready to set the fermentation in process.

Well, this must make it very expensive.

Exactly.

The most, the most expensive tea.

Yeah.

Because you can make only very small quantities of it.

Wonderful white tea.

I need to try some.

Now I live in a country that produces a lot of wine, and I know that wine growing is a slow process.

Wine takes years and years to procure, to mature, to mature.

The leaves that we see being picked in this estate today will be ready for drinking in how long? 24 hours. 24 Hours?

Tomorrow morning.

At this time, the tea, the green leaf that is being plucked today here in this field, we'll be ready for drinking.

It'll be converted to black tea by that time.

That's incredibly fast.

That's really fast.

So there's no time needed for...Tea doesn't get better with age.

No.

It's very, very important that we finish that process as quickly as possible, depending on other parameters like, fermenting time, drying time, and so on.

But basically in about 24 hours, it'll be converted to black tea, ready for drinking.

I love that.

Garden fresh.

Yeah, absolutely.

Moving On from Craighead, Anora accompanied me to another Dilmah property, the Houpe estate, surrounded by waterfalls and the beautiful Udawalawe National Park, the estate isn't just known for its tea, but also for my favorite spice - true Sri Lankan cinnamon.

But first more tea.

This is very beautiful.

I know that it's tea, but I'm not quite sure what's happening.

Yeah.

This is green leaf, which has been rolled in the rollers and twisted in order to break up the leaf, so that the juices in the leaf can be expressed and exposed to the outside atmosphere.

The... to start off the process of fermentation.

Fermentation.

Yeah.

So this is spread on the fermenting tables and left like this for maybe one and a half to two hours, depending on external conditions like temperature and so on.

I love the idea that there's all this magic going on.

Underneath the fermentation, which is giving the tea its flavor.

Yeah.

Although we, this, we just see this inert brown layer here.

There is a highly complex chemical process taking place here inside.

I wonder ifwe can hear it.

So , this is a first for me.

I'm holding two of the largest bundles of cinnamon I've ever seen in my life.

It's absolutely fantastic.

It smells gorgeous.

Behind us are cinnamon trees.

But tell me what's the difference between these two? 'cause one is noticeably bigger than the other.

Yes.

This is the top cinnamon grade that we make of pencil thickness.

Perfectly rolled, all of equal thickness.

This is a slightly larger grade where the bark is thicker and the bark... the inside of the bark, is filled with cinnamon chips.

But this is the only true cinnamon, which grows in Sri Lanka as opposed to its more toxic cousin cassia.

So Cassia is something that is produced in, in other countries.

We won't mention them.

Yes.

In other countries, large quantities.

It's sort of, it's a fake cinnamon.

Is that right?

It's... it is a fake cinnamon.

Yeah.

This is the real deal.

This Is real thing.

I think it's absolutely gorgeous.

So how do we get from this, the cinnamon tree to, to this?

Tell me where does it grow?

Yeah.

Periodically the cinnamon stems are removed, you know, can you see almost right from the bottom, the mature - these stems...

These stems are removed.

Right.

And, immediately taken to the cinnamon factory where they are moistened and then peeled immediately.

Thereafter.

By... that's... that's by hand?

Yes.

It's a manual process.

Right.

There's a special peeling knife, and it's peeled by highly skilled cinnamon peelers, and the bark extracted.

And after curing, after certain number of days, it achieves this configuration.

And this is, it's quite valuable, isn't it?

It is. ...What I'm holding in my hands.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's very expensive.

And cinnamon...

Cinnamon is one of...

I think of all the spices, cinnamon is the sexiest.

It's called the queen of all spices.

Yeah.

And, cinnamon has had more written about it in literature, more poems written about it both and prose as well than any other spice.

It even appears in the Bible, in the Song of Solomon.

In the Song of Solomon as a sort of, what a metaphor for, for sensuality and temptation.

It's certainly one of my favorite spices, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My time in the Sri Lankan hills and their tea estates was at an end, but there was still one more thing.

I was keen to learn - something fundamental to the tea experience, and for this, I needed to meet up again with Dilhan Fernando.

Fernando, how do you taste tea?

What do you look, I mean, is it about if you smell it?

No.

So...

How does that work?

You experience a tea in three dimensions.

Okay.

So on the eye, you experience the infusion and you can see, look, this is quite a light tea because it's got olive flecks, little bit of copper, some khaki.

And on the nose it has that moscatel note.

It has a little bit of floral note.

So first on the eye, then on the nose, And then you do the final, which is...

Ooh.

And wow.

So what you do then is you, you taste, you've got the five senses, sweets, also bit umami on your on your tongue, but also you slurp because you want to aerate the olfactory bulb - the brain...

As you do with wine.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So, you know, if, if you don't slurp, it would be like having a, a beautiful, delicate meal, while having a cold, so you only get 50% of the experience, or even less.

Whilst the two Dilmah brothers continue the legacy their father left them, they have also expanded their business into the tourism sector, where the Dilmah Estates don't just produce tea, but are resorts in their own right places to visit and stay in.

On our tea estates, we took five colonial historic tea planters' bungalows, and converted them to the first Relais & Châteaux.

Relais & Châteaux is the French Association of Family-owned and managed properties.

Very niche, very much like Dilmah Tea, so the ethos of our tourism product, Alastair, is identical to Dilmah Tea.

It's not about volume, it's not about size, it's about being boutique, being artisanal.

So on our tea estates, we have Ceylon tea trails, which is the gold standard for boutique luxury in this country.

Travelers come from all over the world and spend two or three nights with us, learn all about the history of Ceylon tea, how it is processed, and you know, what the points of difference are.

And then on the back of that, I built several other properties also Relais & Châteaux, so we have a beautiful circuit Relais call it root de bonne heure in French, meaning root de bonne heurer.... where you go from one relais to another...

You enjoy amazing cuisine of that place.

So it's modern Sri Lankan.

And live in beautifully designed, you know, family managed accommodation.

So it's a beautiful circuit of three properties.

One of our biggest points of difference is we are very friendly, warm, and we are very resilient.

We are the most welcoming nation on earth, I would say.

I agree.

I agree.

That's what tourists really like because they feel warmly welcome from the heart.

And tourists are flooding in.

Fantastic.

And drinking a lot of Ceylon tea.- Dilhmah Tea.

Tea, the second most consumed drink in the world has a long history stretching back hundreds of years.

And my visit to the tea estates of Sri Lanka and being able to witness the production processes up close gave me a whole new respect and appreciation for refreshing, comforting and healthy cup of tea.