What will the “tea room” that Dilmah will install in Chile look like: it’s the first in America

Dilmah one of the five largest companies producers of tea all over the world, has focused its attention on Pepper .

And the Sri Lankan company is looking to launch an innovative project in our country in the coming months, before the end of 2024.

This is the first one living room of tea room they will have in America as reported Pulse of La Tercera the CEO of the company, Dilhan Fernando, who was recently visiting our country.

After launching the initiative in Chilean territory, the company plans to replicate it in other countries on the continent, such as the United States and Canada.

Although the exact location of the Dilmah lounge in our country is currently unknown, the company is in negotiations with two gastronomic groups.

The place will be a bistro, but at the same time it will function as a restaurant and a bar where it will be possible to read, eat and discover the world of tea.

The goal is that in the same place there is a restaurant with pairing options, a bar with cocktails and mocktails prepared with tea, a space to take classes and a store to buy products.

Chile is a familiar territory for Dilmah, as they have maintained commercial relations for two decades. Specifically, the brand founded by Merrill J. Fernando is present in the national market through the company Pibamour, a company dedicated to the import and distribution of gourmet products.

However, the inauguration of the tea room represents a new step for both Dilmah and Chile.

“We have had a relationship in Chile for 22 years. It is something we want to celebrate as a family business. Passion is the driving force of our business. But it is relationships that make us strong. And now, after Covid, we celebrate those relationships, because that is what has given us strength in the face of adversity,” explained the CEO of Dilmah and son of the founder.

There is another reason why the company chose our country to be the first on the entire continent to have a room of this type: high tea consumption.

According to a study carried out by Euromonitor in 2023, Chile is the largest tea-consuming country in Latin America, with 427 cups per capita per year. Although this amount may seem normal, the figures from other countries are considerably lower: Argentina consumes 95 cups per person per year, Uruguay 80 and Bolivia 75.

Currently, the tea company sells around 6 million dollars in Chilean territory, which is equivalent to 135 tons of tea per year.

Asked how Chile views investment, Fernando explained that, as is the case in the rest of the world, the country is emerging from a complex economic period.

However, he also believes that “the hotel and restaurant industry is growing” and the economy is strengthening, which “makes Chile’s future very promising” .

“We are experiencing a similar situation in Sri Lanka, where we are also going through a crisis. The future is positive, because Chile has a strong human resource. People are optimistic, the outlook is positive and the economy is on solid foundations,” commented the CEO of Dilmah.

Merrill J. Fernando, creator of the prestigious tea brand, was born in 1930 in Negombo, one of the largest cities in Sri Lanka, an island nation located south of India and formerly called Ceylon.

From a young age, Fernando had a deep interest in becoming a tea taster. which was then a British-dominated area, so he moved to Colombo. At the age of 20, he was selected in the first group of Ceylonese to train at Mincing Lane in London, the epicentre of tea.

There he realized that tea was usually combined between different types and was sold in Europe as if it were pure Sri Lankan tea.

But there was something else that horrified him too: Tea from his country was exported at very low prices to the European continent, because it was used as a raw material. There, branding and packaging were added and its value increased, and ultimately the benefits gained by Sri Lankan traders were minimal.

In 1954 he began working as a tea attendant for Arthur Frederick Jones and his sons Dennis and Alan Jones at A.F. Jones & Co. Four years later the owning family appointed him managing director, according to the Dilmah Official Website .

After a few years, he resigned from his job and decided to start his own brand to produce this ancient drink, which he called Ceylon Tea Services Company. It also started exporting loose tea to several countries like Russia, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Egypt.

In the 1980s he founded Ceylon Tea Services Ltd., which he listed as a public company at the request of the government to support the Colombo Stock Exchange.

After three decades in business, Fernando decided in 1985 to launch Sri Lanka’s first value-added tea brand: Dilmah. The name was a combination of the names of his two children, Dilhan and Mallik, who also inherited the passion for beer.

Since then, Dilmah has positioned itself as one of the largest tea producing companies in the world. Its most important principle was to guarantee the quality and authenticity of the drink.

“Our goal is not to be the biggest. My father always stressed the importance of offering quality tea. As a producer, your love goes to the flavor, not the numbers. For us, and for me in particular, coming here is important not only for the Chilean market, but also to share our love for tea and the importance of flavor, quality and the ethical purpose of tea. This is our story. Being able to share a cup of tea with our customers here gives meaning to our relationships. This is the main objective of what we do,” explained Dilhan Fernando.