TEA TIME!

Sri Lanka is famous for its tea, which was introduced by the British in the 19th century. "Ceylon tea" is famous throughout the world to this day. Personally, I think it's the best tea of all time, but I'm biased! ;o)

Back in the day, tea was packed and sold in tins, which got more and more colorful towards the middle of the 20th century, and to me these mid-century tea tins are the prettiest. 

Sometimes you can find these little gems online, but they can be pricey. I'm fortunate to inherit one from my mother, and it's one of my prized possessions!

Here are some examples of vintage/mid-century Ceylon tea tins:

A Tetley tea tin from the 1920s

 

A beach scene tea tin from the 1930s

 

A groovy mid-century tea tin from the '50s!

 

 And this is my tea tin, another mid-century one from the '60s:

 

My mother shares my love of these kinds of things, and she brought this pretty tin over from Sri Lanka. She's had it for many many years. Now I want to do a nice little flower arrangement in it for Spring ... maybe silk hydrangeas? 

If I had the money I'd collect vintage Ceylon tea tins. They're so beautiful and evoke a bygone era so well!

POSTERS FROM MID CENTURY SRI LANKA

I love Mid century travel posters!  Those from Sri Lanka (Ceylon) are particularly dear to me, but reprints are hard to find and originals are exorbitantly expensive. Sri Lankan author Anura Saparamadu has written a great book on vintage Sri Lankan posters, Vintage Posters of Ceylon, and you can see some of them on his website. There was also an exhibition of the posters at the Barefoot Gallery in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Wish I could have attended that! It must have been just amazing.

You can find a few reprints of vintage Sri Lanka posters online, though. Here are my favorites: 

A Dutch tourist poster print, available at Zazzle: 





A reprint of a vibrant 1948 C.K.L. Samarasinha poster advertising Kandyan dancers, available on eBay: 

An adorable midcentury poster advertising Air Ceylon, from the Mary Evans Picture Library: 

Can't wait to add these prints to our collection! 

I'll post some photos soon of vintage Sri Lanka prints that we own, especially precious because they're not available anymore. In the meantime, I hope more of these gorgeous posters can be reprinted and made available to everyone!