About Us
Our Story
Westvale Farms was created from a personal connection to Sri Lanka and a simple idea: make authentic Sri Lankan foods easier to discover, understand, and enjoy in the United States.
Our founder was born and raised in Sri Lanka and later built a life in the U.S. That connection to both places shaped the vision for Westvale Farms — bringing products with deep roots in Sri Lankan culture to customers through a local, U.S.-based business.
Today, Westvale Farms is based in Pendergrass, Georgia, offering carefully sourced Ceylon cinnamon, Ceylon black tea, and tropical fruit products to customers across the U.S.
A Small Island With a Big Food Story
Sri Lanka is a tropical island nation in South Asia, located in the Indian Ocean just off the southeastern coast of India.
Although it covers only about 25,300 square miles, the island is home to around 22 million people and has an agricultural and trading history that has connected it with the rest of the world for centuries.
Its warm climate, fertile land, central highlands, and long history of spice and tea cultivation have helped make Sri Lanka known for some of the world's most distinctive agricultural products.
Among them, two stand out especially: Ceylon cinnamon and Ceylon tea.
The Story of Ceylon Cinnamon
True Ceylon cinnamon comes from Cinnamomum verum, a cinnamon species native to Sri Lanka.
Cinnamon has been valued since antiquity and appears in historical records going back thousands of years. Ceylon cinnamon became one of the island's most prized trade commodities, attracting merchants and later European powers seeking control of the spice trade. Historical accounts describe cinnamon as a luxury worthy of monarchs and rulers.
By the time European maritime trade expanded, cinnamon had become so commercially important that control of Sri Lanka's cinnamon-producing regions was a major strategic objective. The Portuguese, Dutch, and British all played roles in the island's cinnamon trade, while the Dutch later developed systematic commercial cultivation.
What makes Ceylon cinnamon visually distinctive is its structure. Instead of the thick, hard bark commonly associated with cassia cinnamon, true Ceylon cinnamon is made from thin inner layers of bark rolled together into delicate quills.
That difference is part of what makes it such an important product for Westvale Farms.
The Story of Ceylon Tea
Tea arrived in Sri Lanka during the British colonial period, but the modern Ceylon tea industry truly began in 1867, when James Taylor established a 19-acre commercial tea plantation at Loolecondera Estate near Kandy.
At the time, coffee was the island's dominant plantation crop. When coffee rust devastated the industry in the late nineteenth century, tea rapidly became the replacement crop and transformed the agricultural economy.
Within a few decades, Ceylon tea developed an international reputation and became one of Sri Lanka's most famous exports. The name Ceylon Tea remained so valuable that the industry continued using it even after the country officially changed its name from Ceylon to Sri Lanka in 1972.
Today, Ceylon tea remains closely associated with Sri Lanka around the world.
Westvale Farms currently offers two loose-leaf black tea styles:
- Orange Pekoe (OP) — a larger-leaf style that produces a clean, aromatic cup.
- Broken Orange Pekoe (BOP) — a smaller broken-leaf style that brews more quickly and produces a fuller cup, making it well suited for milk tea, iced tea, and everyday brewing.
More Than Cinnamon and Tea
Sri Lanka's tropical climate also produces an abundance of fruit.
Westvale Farms currently offers tropical fruit products including:
- Dehydrated mango with no added sugar
- Dehydrated pineapple with no added sugar
- Dehydrated banana with no added sugar
- Sweetened mango
- Sweetened pineapple
That lets customers choose between fruit with no added sugar and a softer, sweeter snack-style option.
Explore our tropical fruit collection
From Sri Lanka to Georgia
Westvale Farms connects two places that are important to our story.
Our products have their roots in Sri Lanka, while our business is based in Pendergrass, Georgia.
We work to make those products easier for U.S. customers to purchase while providing the communication, service, packaging, and support of a domestic business.
Products are imported and distributed through SL Trade Hub, which also supports wholesale, bulk, and private-label customers.
What We Believe
We believe good food does not need an exaggerated story.
It needs a real origin, good ingredients, careful sourcing, and people who care about what reaches the customer.
That is what we want Westvale Farms to represent:
Authentic origins. Carefully sourced products. U.S.-based service.