Nuwara Eliya is an area in the central highlands of Sri Lanka. Located at an altitude of between 1,100 and 1,800 meters it is a well suited location for tea production.

After a tea plant was brought from China to Ceylon by the British in 1824, commercial cultivation was initiated by the Brit James Taylor in 1867, when he started the country's first tea plantation in Kandy.

Following the invention of synthetic rubber and a decline in demand for natural rubber, coupled with the coffee industry's devastation from disease, Ceylon shifted largely to tea production. Around 1890, Thomas Lipton acquired tea plantations to bypass intermediaries and started direct tea exports.

Today, a good deal of the island's central highlands are covered with tea bushes and Sri Lanka has become the world's 4th largest producer of tea, as well as the world's largest exporter of the crop.