Mlesna Tea Centre

Mlesna traces to 1983, when Anselm Perera — who had spent a decade as a tea taster for Brooke Bond before becoming Tea Manager at Shaw Wallace and Hedges — set up his own tea company, taking its name from a rearrangement of his own first name. Two years later he opened Sri Lanka's first dedicated Tea Centre at Liberty Plaza in Colombo, introducing a retail format, part shop and part tasting kiosk, that hadn't existed on the island before.

That model expanded into a chain of sixteen outlets across Sri Lanka, alongside export and retail relationships that carried the Mlesna name to Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Greece and India. The centres sell the full range of the country's tea — orthodox black grades from the island's growing regions, green tea, flavoured and scented blends, and herbal infusions — packaged in the tins, caddies and gift sets the brand is known for, alongside teapots and other tea ware. Mlesna's packaging has drawn recognition from international bodies including the World Packaging Organisation.

For a visitor, a Mlesna Tea Centre is less a single destination than the standard stop for well-presented, exporter-grade Ceylon tea, from a company that helped define how Sri Lanka sells tea to the world.