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View all Ella toursElla Tea Factory, Ravana Falls and Sri Lankan Cooking Class Day Tour
A full Ella day built around food and tea: a working factory visit, Little Adam's Peak, the Nine Arch Bridge and Ravana Falls, finishing with a hands-on rice and curry cooking class and lunch.
Highlights
- A working Uva tea factory from withering trough to grading table
- Little Adam's Peak and the Nine Arch Bridge in the same day
- Grating coconut on a hiramanaya and grinding spice paste on stone
- Cooking six or seven dishes in clay pots over a wood fire
- Eating the rice and curry you made
Ella Tea Factory, Ravana Falls and Sri Lankan Cooking Class Day Tour: Key Facts
| Price | From $49.39 per person |
|---|---|
| Duration | 8 hours |
| Languages | English |
| Tour type | Guided Tour |
| Booking | Direct with the local operator — no OTA markup |
Full description
Ella sits in Uva province, and Uva tea is genuinely distinct — a dry seasonal wind blows across these slopes from June to September and gives the leaf a character tasters can identify blind. A working factory here walks you from the withering troughs through rolling, oxidation and firing to the grading table in about forty-five minutes, and it is the best forty-five minutes anyone spends explaining why one bush becomes six graded products at wildly different prices.
The walking half of the day covers the two things Ella is known for: Little Adam's Peak, 45 minutes up a stepped path for the view through the Gap, and the Nine Arch Bridge, a stone viaduct built without steel during the First World War.
The cooking is the part people remember. Rice and curry is badly named in English — it is not a curry with rice but six or seven separate dishes cooked individually and eaten together. You grate coconut on a hiramanaya, grind the spice paste on a stone, and cook in clay pots over a fire that behaves nothing like a gas ring.
Then you eat it, which after a morning of walking is the right order.
Tour Itinerary
The schedule below is a suggested plan and can be adjusted to suit your preferences.
Little Adam's Peak
Pickup and the walk up at first light.
Nine Arch Bridge
Timed for a train where the schedule allows.
Tea factory
The full process, ending with a tasting.
Cooking class
Grating, grinding and clay-pot cooking.
Lunch
Eating what you cooked.
Ravana Falls
A stop before returning.
Drop-off
Back at your hotel.
Detailed Itinerary
[{"time": "06:30", "title": "Hotel pickup", "description": "Early, because the Gap view is clearer in the morning in every month."}, {"time": "11:00", "title": "Tea factory", "description": "Factories close on poya days, when an estate walk substitutes."}, {"time": "12:30", "title": "Cooking", "description": "About 90 minutes. You do as much or as little as you want."}, {"time": "14:00", "title": "Lunch", "description": "Vegetarian by default. Tell the operator in advance about other requirements."}, {"time": "16:00", "title": "Ella", "description": "Drop-off at your hotel."}]
Includes
- Private vehicle with an English-speaking driver-guide, hotel pickup and drop-off in Ella, the tea factory visit, the cooking class with all ingredients, and the lunch you cook.
Excludes
- Entrance fees where they apply, drinks beyond those served with lunch, gratuities, tea purchases.
Important information
Meeting point
Hotel pickup in Ella; the exact address and time are confirmed after booking.
Know before you go
- Free cancellation available up to 24 hours before the activity starts