Staring glumly out of the window while sitting in traffic on the Duplication Road, I’ve often noticed a little sign next to the Audi showroom saying ‘Senok Te Kade’. Walking down the road the other day, at height of heat and thirst, we finally ventured in, hoping to find tall glasses of lemoney iced tea. No such luck. The Senok Centre sells packaged Senok Tea, an import product, marketed mainly to tourists and sold sparsely within Sri Lanka.
We only bought the black strawberry tea – Rs. 300 for 100g – so can’t really comment on the rest of their wares, but it was nice, smelling like freshly smushed and steamy strawberries. What’s really nice, however, is the shop itself. Bizarrely barred by the sheets of glass and the frosty secretary of the Audi showroom, no one would know it was there if not for the sign. But once you move beyond the glassy walls and gleaming cars, you enter a mudhut kade style shop, complete with palm thatched roof and tree trunk pillars. Inside, the walls are lined with colourful boxes of tea, ranging from the more garish lower range teabag packages to pretty wooden boxes containing a whole variety of loose teas.
The shop isn’t cheap. A standard 100g box costs around Rs. 300, but it’s a lovely novelty sort of place to take a tourist friend, and if you’re looking to send abroad some tea based gifts, they’ve got rather nice packaging. While they won’t be quenching your thirst on a blazing afternoon, the tea seems decent and the shop is cute. Good for directing tea questing tourists.
