US Ambassador Robert. O. Blake hands over an award.

Proceeds from a Charity Tea Auction which sold 864 kilos of award-winning teas and raised Rs.6.2 million in less than half an hour will be donated in full to support the education of tsunami affected children in the Kalutara District of Sri Lanka under the supervision of the Colombo Tea Traders' Association (CTTA).

The auction held last week at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) auctioned the best estate mark teas selected from seven agro climatic regions in the country which were selected by a panel of judges from the US, the Tea Board said.

It said the auction was the final stage of the Ceylon Specialty Tea of the year contest organized by SLTB in collaboration with the Tea Association of USA and the CTTA. The main objective of the Ceylon Specialty Tea of the Year contest was to popularize the specialty single estate tea from Sri Lanka in the US market.
The panel of judges appointed by theTea Association of USA tasted and evaluated teas from Nuwara Eliya, Dimbula, Uva, Uda Pussellawa, Kandy, Ruhuna and Sabaragamuwa and also from the green tea sector. Eight winners and twelve runners up were selected by the panel out of 410 entries received for the competition.

Two lots of winning teas were auctioned in the first ever Ceylon Tea Auction held in the US at the World Tea Expo on June 1. A kilo of New Vithanakande tea from the Sabaragamuwa region fetched US$70 (Rs.7490) per kilo while a kilo of St. James tea from the Uva region got US$22 (Rs.2354) per kilo.
The balance 18 lots were auctioned at the Charity Tea Auction in Colombo in the presence of US Ambassador Robert Blake who gave away the awards to the winners and runners up in the competition.