Sri Lanka’s tea cultivators and manufacturers are the custodians of the traditional, orthodox method of black tea production. This is still agreed by most experts to produce the best black tea. Even with the technological improvements introduced over the last thirty or forty years, the orthodox method is relatively slow and labour-intensive; but as the tea planters and traders of Sri Lanka have always maintained, good tea cannot be hurried. Nor, oddly enough, can it be delayed. The time devoted to each of the processes of tea manufacture has to be finely judged if a quality product is to be obtained. This is a matter of the tea-maker’s judgment, for the right timing depends on the moisture content of the plucked leaf, the temperature and humidity conditions prevailing over the period of manufacture, and a variety of other factors. Although the process of making fine black tea is simple in its essentials, expertise, experience and a ‘feel’ for the task are absolutely essential to success.