Leave a pleasant memory of your trip to the fabulous island of spices! We tell you what to bring from Sri Lanka. Prices for Sri Lankan gifts and souvenirs. Tips and reviews of tourists, where and how to make good purchases.
Exchange rate: 100 Sri Lankan rupees (LKR) ≈ 41 RUB.
Ceylon tea
Tea is a visiting card of Sri Lanka. Locals drink it in the English manner - with milk, so Sri Lankans produce a lot of finely ground tea. Each pack has an image of a lion with a sword. It serves as a quality certificate that buyers are guided by.
Not sure what kind of tea you can bring from Sri Lanka? In addition to the traditional black tea, they sell green and fermented red tea. An original souvenir is white tea, which is made from unblown top leaves of a tea bush. Packs with this tea are marked with the inscription Silver Tips.
Price... Pack of 200 g of plain tea Maskeliya will cost 200 LKR. More expensive tea Mlesna sell for 245 LKR.
Advice... If you want a stronger tea, use the finest grind. If you love the delicate taste, buy sliced or whole leaf tea.
Coffee
Coffee plantations appeared on the island a long time ago. It produces traditional coffee and ground coffee with various additives.
Price... A pack of 200 g costs from 300 LKR, 1 kg of selected coffee beans - 1800-4200 LKR.
Advice... Supermarkets sell unusual Island Coffee with vanilla and ginger. A pack of 200 g will cost 290 LKR.
Fruits
What should you bring your family from Sri Lanka? Grab Yummy Tropical Fruits! Tourists are advised to buy jackfruit, mangosteen, mango, rambutan, lychee, guava, banana, papaya, pomelo, carambola, longan, pineapple and sapodilla. Try Indian gooseberries amla, jamaican plum ambarella and sour cream anona.
Price... Seasonal fruits in Sri Lanka are very cheap - from 10 LKR per 1 kg. Oranges, apples and mangoes - 20-25 LKR, small yellow bananas - 60 LKR. Pineapples sell for 80-100 LKR apiece.
Advice... When choosing, pay attention to prices. Fruits brought to the island from Indonesia and China are sold several times more expensive.
Sweets
Not sure what to bring from Sri Lanka as a gift for a sweet tooth? Sri Lankans make many delicious sweets. Tourists love soft candy made from coconut, palm sugar and sesame seeds - talabol and talaguli.
Adults and children love a sweetness similar to the Georgian churchkhela - kalu dodol... For the manufacture of this delicacy, coconut milk, honey, rice flour, juices, nuts and spices are used. In Sri Lanka, you can buy several types kalu dodol.
Sweet tooths will be delighted with kiri toffee... This is the name of the Sri Lankan sweetness, which tastes like our "Ladybug" sweets. Kiri toffee is sold in 200 and 300 g tiles.
Price... Fruit and nut sweets cost 10-20 LKR per 1 kg.
Advice... To save money, buy sweet souvenirs not in tourist places, but where locals take them.
What to bring from Sri Lanka - Ayurveda
Palm sugar
Palm-derived sugar kithul Is a great souvenir that you can bring from Sri Lanka. It is rich in vitamins, sucrose, glucose and fructose, tastes good and is much healthier than regular refined sugar. The color of the product can be from cream to dark brown, and the consistency is from semi-liquid to solid.
Price... A small bottle of molasses weighing 100 g in fruit tents costs 100 LKR. Sri Lankan supermarkets sell large bottles of 340 g for 300 LKR. One kilogram of loose palm sugar costs 400 LKR.
Advice... We do not recommend buying from souvenir shops for tourists. The prices are very high there.
Sri Lankan spices
It is an unforgivable mistake to visit the spice island and not take something for your kitchen. Fragrant spices are # 1 on the list that you can bring from Sri Lanka.
Tourists willingly take various types of peppers, fresh ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, vanilla, tamarind, turmeric, anise, cumin, fennel, mustard seeds, saffron, lemongrass - citronella and cardamom. Spices are sold in small "sausage" packages or in sealed bags.
Price... A package of spices weighing 300 g costs from 200 to 500 LKR, dried cinnamon, 1 kg - 1500 LKR.
Advice... Each spice has its own registration number, which the state issues to the owner of the Spice Garden. If you are offered cheap spices that do not have a registration number, this is a substandard product.
Cashew nuts
Exotic nuts are not a local product. Cashews came to the island from South America. If in Russia cashews are not cheap, in Sri Lanka, raw and roasted nuts are sold on every corner, like seeds in our country. They look larger than domestic ones and are not as dry.
Price... 100 g of cashews costs 70-150 LKR.
Advice... Packages of nuts are best purchased from regular stores.
Sri Lankan spirits
What to bring from Sri Lanka as a gift for a connoisseur of strong alcohol? Take coconut macaw, which tastes like whiskey and rum. For the manufacture of arak, the juice of coconut flowers is used. It is customary to drink it in small portions with ice and soda.
Sweet alcohol lovers love red rum Сalypso... The drink tastes like caramel and is made by distilling cane sugar. Red banana juice gives a pleasant color.
Price... 0.7L coconut macaw will cost 1000 LKR, red rum - 2100 LKR. The rarer Silver Calypso rum is even more expensive.
Advice... Get alcoholic drinks from liquor stores or special sections of supermarkets.
What else can you bring from Sri Lanka
- Ayurvedic tonics, creams and shampoos - 200-8000 LKR.
- Chili and cinnamon flavored toothpaste - 100 LKR.
- Coconut and sandalwood oils - from 150 LKR.
- Precious stones that are mined on the island - from 20,000 LKR.
- Cotton and silk clothing 500-800 LKR.
- Wooden figurines of elephants - 400 LKR.
- Painted wooden masks - 600-1400 LKR.
What cannot be exported from Sri Lanka
It is forbidden to export more than 5,000 Sri Lankan rupees, so spend your local currency at duty free shops at the airport. They will not be allowed to take out antiques, which are recognized as historical heritage, wild animals, many types of plants, raw precious stones, corals and crafts made from them. For products made of ivory, a special certificate must be presented.
Fruit cannot be taken out of the country in hand luggage. Ripe fruits can only be transported in one way - packed in a bag or suitcase and checked in luggage. It is forbidden to take durians, watermelons and coconuts on the plane.
Travel Tips
- According to reviews, good Ayurvedic cosmetics are made by SmithNatural, Natures Secrets, Dabur and Himalaya.
- Sri Lankans are not particularly fond of bargaining. They don’t expect you to ask for a discount, and they tell you the desired price right away. To find out the real value of goods, walk around the market and observe how much the locals buy.
- It is more profitable to take spices not in the Spice Gardens, but in shops or markets.
- It is believed that gold and silver are very expensive in Sri Lanka. Buy not ready-made jewelry, but processed stones.
- Black Sri Lankan teas have special markings. FP, OP, P, PS represent whole leaf teas. If you see the letters BOP, FBOP, BP, PD, BPS on a pack, then the product is made of cut leaves. Finely ground teas are marked with Fngs and D.
- Alpine tea is considered the best. It is grown in the southern provinces of the country.
- Tropical fruits spoil quickly. Go shopping a couple of days or a day before check-out. Choose hard, less ripe fruits.
