Abstract:
Sri Lanka is one of the major tea exporting countries in the world. Sri Lankan tea has unique characteristics and reputation as the best tea in the world (Zoysa, 2008). Tea grading is essentially a classification of the product in terms of particle size, shape and cleanliness (byad et al., 2004). Off grades have lower price than main grades. But, its cost of production is higher than main grades. Off grade tea reduces the quality of the end product (Samaraweera et al, 1988). This research was conducted with the aim of identification of reasons for the higher percentage of tea off grades
