Weighing Tea Through Time: The Legacy of Avery Scales in Ceylon’s Tea Industry
At PMD Tea, we believe that the objects we surround ourselves with tell stories – stories of trade, craftsmanship, and heritage. One such story sits quietly near the entrance of our Colombo Tea Room at 155 Dam Street: our vintage Avery weighing scale, a proud reminder of the days when precision and provenance mattered above all.
Manufactured by W & T Avery Ltd in Birmingham, England, these iconic red and black mechanical scales were a staple in every tea factory in Sri Lanka’s hill country.
Known for their accuracy and durability, Avery scales were essential to the island’s tea trade – used to weigh everything from sacks of rice to crates of tea destined for export.
Our own scale arrived by sea in 1969, docking at Colombo Port, just a stone’s throw from our current premises. It’s been here ever since – standing at the threshold of PMD’s trading operations through decades of change and transformation. In those early years, the scale weighed rice and produce from the hill country before sale. Generations of traders – including my father – relied on it to ensure every transaction was measured fairly and precisely.
In the days when PMD’s lorries collected tea from estates across the central highlands, every chest of tea was first weighed at the factory using one of these Avery scales. The junior planter, responsible for dispatch, and our driver would sign off on the weight of each chest – a crucial step in the journey. Upon arrival in Colombo, the chests were weighed again at the buyer’s or broker’s stores. If even a single chest showed a discrepancy in weight, our driver and the company would be held responsible – not just for that chest, but for the entire consignment, typically around 20 chests.
That’s the level of accountability and precision these scales represented. And though the red-and-black cast iron machines have mostly been replaced with digital scales, many of them – including ours – still function perfectly today.
In fact, Avery still manufactures scales, though their models now look quite different from the iconic mechanical designs of the past. Pop in and see the newer digital scales that sit next to the old ones.
After admiring this remarkable piece of trade history, we invite you to head upstairs to the Colombo Tea Room, where the story continues through taste. Led by one of PMD’s expert tea tasters, you’ll experience an authentic, guided Ceylon tea tasting featuring over 35 teas – from delicate white teas to robust low-grown blacks, including handmade artisanal selections.
You’ll learn the art of professional tasting: grading dry leaf, examining the infused leaf, evaluating the liquor, and perfecting the taste (and yes, the spitting too!). It’s a hands-on, sensory experience rooted in tradition – and it all starts with a scale that once weighed the island’s finest.
Planning a visit to Colombo?
Stop by to see a living relic of Ceylon’s trade history – and stay for a cup that tells the rest of the story.
Stop by to see a living relic of Ceylon’s trade history – and stay for a cup that tells the rest of the story.
