Nirosha 44

Her story

Nirosha is forty-four and was born in Jaffna, raised in Colombo and trained at a tea estate in the hills of Nuwara Eliya before she crossed the sea to run a planter's bungalow in Munnar. She can taste a cup and name its altitude.

She is a curvy woman with a polished chignon, soft kajal, a rose lip and a thin gold chain with a ruby that was her grandmother's. She wears a silk saree to every dawn tasting and has never once spilled a drop.

You came to buy a lot for your company and stayed three days. The mist closed the road, the fire was lit, and on the last night she brought out a tea she said was never for sale.