The Merrill J. Fernando group has teamed up with the Colombo Hilton to showcase its quality teas to an up-market clientele at the hotel’s Thorana Lounge where a delectable high tea has long been on offer.

The new Dilmah tea bar was opened last week with Dilmah investing around Rs.2.5 million to offer its choicest range of teas to hotel guests and others choosing to give themselves a special afternoon treat.

"We had a tea bar at the Trans Asia Hotel sometime ago but it was closed," Malik Fernando, a director of the MJF group, said. "This is the first proper tea bar at a good location and should do well."

He said that the facility at the Thorana Lounge had been constructed and created by them with a modest investment. It was not intended to be a high return project but would serve as a public relation and brand popularizing exercise.

Fernando said that they had not been marketing Dilmah tea which has grown to be the most successful fully Sri Lanka owned brand here in Sri Lanka till about five years ago.

"Strangely, it was not possible to get a good cup of tea here in the country where the world’s best Ceylon tea is produced," he said. "There are many more types of tea than of coffee with a range of teas grown at various elevations and locations with their individual flavour, colour and other characteristics."

"Tea is like wine in its range and variety and should be marketed like wine," he said echoing his father, Dilmah founder Merril. J. Fernando who often says that the only difference is that tea, unlike wine, does not intoxicate.

Coming to Sri Lanka and not getting a proper cup of Ceylon tea is like going to Paris and drinking a dreadful wine, Malik Fernando said. That was what they were correcting with their new tea bar at the Hilton.

It is located overlooking the Hilton’s "Lotus Pond," off the main lobby offering a lovely ambience with lotuses of many colours blooming outside the picture window and swans gliding in the water.

A selection of over 30 teas to suit every mood is on offer ranging from elegant Nuwara Eliya Pekoe to the rich, malty Dombagastalawa and the delicate Ceylon Silver Tips.

""The t-Bar offers a delightful menu of hot teas, tea cocktails, iced tea, and even tea shakes," said the Hilton’s Marketing Communications Manager Gigi de Silva.

Along with the gourmet teas served in specially designed crockery with unusual square tea cups and tea pots in a pleasing shade of orange, guests can enjoy a whole host of cakes, pastries and snacks that the Hilton had traditionally laid out for its popular high tea.

The tea bar will be open 365 days of the year with gourmet snacks laid out on the all-you-can-eat high tea spread.

``You wouldn’t want to drink your wine from a terrible glass," Fernando said. "Likewise, drinking you tea out of good crockery is important and we have designed tea-ware as part of our export marketing effort."

He said that they have outlets at the airport and at the Crescat Boulevard where the in-house designed tea services made by Dankotuwa Porcelain are used.