Herman Teas (Handunugoda Tea Estate)

Handunugoda is one of the few tea estates on Sri Lanka's coastal belt rather than up in the hill country, a 200-acre property in Tittagalla, near Ahangama in Galle District, that has stayed in the Gunaratne family for three generations and over a century. Herman Gunaratne, a well-known figure in Sri Lankan tea, now runs it as sole proprietor and personally directs the crafting of its teas, most famously Virgin White Tea: a single unopened bud lifted with golden scissors and dropped straight into a waiting bowl, never touched by hand, following a method drawn from imperial tea traditions. That tea has since earned outside recognition — it's now carried in the rare-tea collection of Mariage Frères, the Paris tea house.

Beyond the white tea, the estate makes twelve teas in total, including an English Breakfast, a Sapphire Oolong, and a Ceylon Souchong smoked with cinnamon rather than pine, alongside a Rainforest Tea tied to the estate's conservation work. The factory itself runs entirely on solar power and folds production byproducts back into the land, part of a rewilding effort with native fruit trees that the estate says has tripled local wildlife numbers. Daily tours, 8am to 4:30pm, take visitors through the plantation and a factory still holding 150-year-old machinery, finishing with a tea-and-chocolate-cake pairing at the Planter's Bungalow.