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‘Those were the royal days of coffee planting in Ceylon, before a single season and a rotting fungus drove a whole community through years of despair to one of the greatest commercial victories which pluck and ingenuity ever won. Not often is it that men have heart when their one great industry is withered, to rear up in a few years another as rich to take its place, and the tea fields of Ceylon are as true a monument to courage as is the lion at Waterloo’
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The principal production of tea in Ceylon is of black or fully oxidized tea. The production of black tea in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) began after a deadly fungus called Hemileia vastatrix destroyed most of the coffee crop on the island. As a result the coffee plantation owners had no choice but to look for ways to diversify. The Loolecondera Estate had long been interested in producing tea in Sri Lanka, but due to the initial interest in coffee decided to hold back. Following the destruction of coffee crops on the island, James Taylor, a Scotsman (the father of Ceylon Tea), who was already experienced in tea cultivation, arrived on the Estate and wanted to be there for the sowing of the first tea crops in 1867. It was done on 19 acres of land. He had acquired his knowledge in North India. A perfectionist by nature, Taylor experimented with tea cultivation and leaf manipulation in order to obtain the best possible flavour from the tea leaves. Taylor’s methods were emulated by other planters and soon, Ceylon Tea was being favourably received by buyers in London, proving that tea could be a profitable plantation crop.
Much to his delight, the tea that James Taylor made was delicious and fetched impressive prices in the London Auction. Following this the “tea craze” hit ceylon. By 1890 tea production was at 22,900 tons up from just a mere 23 pounds between 1873 and 1880.
Long after the island gained independence in 1948, most of the tea companies in Sri Lanka were British-owned, but this soon changed after the Land Reform Act was introduced to reacquire land in foreign hands in 1971. Since 1990, a new plan has been devised to share the industry between state-owned companies and privately-owned companies. |
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