The
story of Ceylon tea begins over two hundred years ago, when the country
that is now known as Sri Lanka, was still a British colony. Coffee was
the dominant crop on the island, and intrepid British men journeyed
across oceans to begin a new life on coffee plantations.
However,
coffee was not destined to succeed in Ceylon. Towards the close of the
1860’s the coffee plantations were struck by Hemileia Vostatrix, coffee
rust, better known as coffee leaf disease or ‘coffee blight’. As the
coffee crop died, planters switched to the production and cultivation of
tea.
Experimental planting of tea had already
begun in 1839 in the botanical gardens of Peradeniya, close to the royal
city of Kandy. These plants had arrived from Assam and Calcutta through
the East India Company. Commercial cultivation of tea commenced in
Ceylon in 1867. Reflecting on the bold initiative, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stated that,
“…the tea fields of Ceylon are as true a monument to courage as is the lion at Waterloo”.
James Taylor, a Scotsman, played a significant role in the development of Ceylon Tea.
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.
In
1872 the first official Ceylon tea was shipped to England and contained
two packages of 23lbs. The first recorded shipment, however, was
dispatched to England in 1877 aboard the vessel The Duke of Argyll.
By
the 1880s almost all the coffee plantations in Ceylon had been
converted to tea. British planters looked to their counterparts at the
East India Company and the Assam Company in India for guidance on crop
cultivation. Coffee stores were rapidly converted to tea factories to
meet the demand for tea. As tea production in Ceylon progressed, new
factories were constructed and an element of mechanization was
introduced. Machinery for factories was brought in from England.
Marshals of Gainsborough – Lancashire, Tangyes Machine Company of
Birmingham, and Davidsons of Belfast supplied machines that are in use
even today.
As Ceylon tea gained in popularity
throughout the world, a need arose to mediate and monitor the sale of
tea. An auction system was established and on 30 July 1883 the first
public sale of tea was conducted. The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce
undertook responsibility for the auctions, and by 1894 the Ceylon Tea
Traders Association was formed. Today almost all tea produced in Sri
Lanka is conducted by these two organizations.