History
In the 18th century, under the Dutch colonial regime, the cinnamon of Ceylon is the main agricultural crop of the island. The European economic crisis of 1830 condemned the cinnamon plantations which produced mainly for export. A few years later, coffee plantations supplanted those of cinnamon, but this did not last, since at the end of the 19th century, a parasite decimated the coffee trees. An attempt was then made to replace them by the cultivation of cocoa, which suffered the same fate. In 1824, the first tea trees were imported from China and Assam, India, by the British. The Planter's Association of Ceylon (PA) was created in 1854 with the objective of perpetuating the plantations of the country (tea of course, but also coconuts, latex, etc.). The PA is one of the oldest institutions of the island still in activity, and it is moreover thanks to its influence that the roads and the railway transport developed in the island. The spectacular expansion of tea production was later spurred on by a British man, James Taylor. By the end of the 1870s, tea plantations had replaced coffee plantations. In 1890, Thomas Lipton met James Taylor and succeeded in democratizing tea, which was then considered a luxury product. At the beginning of the 20th century, the British imported labor from Tamil Nadu, India, to work in the plantations, because the Sinhalese refused to do so. Today, it is their descendants who provide the bulk of the labor force in tea production. In 1971, the plantations, which belonged to the British, were nationalized by the Sri Lankan government. In 1972, Ceylon became Sri Lanka, but the name "Ceylon Tea" was kept because it was a guarantee of quality. In spite of the nationalizations, the quality of the tea produced on the island declines, and from 1992, the plantations are again privatized, with for consequence a recovered quality. The Ceylon Tea Museum was inaugurated in December 2001 in Kandy. The production of tea in Sri Lanka reached records in the years 2000 and the country is then the3rd largest producer in the world. It has since been overtaken by Kenya which has taken its place on the podium.
The tea transformation process
After the failure of the coffee plantations, the British soon realized that the island's climate and varied elevations favored the cultivation of tea, as in India. The trees used mainly in tea plantations were two varieties imported from Assam, a state in northeast India; their scientific names were Camellia sinensis var. assamica and Camellia sinensis var. sinensis . These tea plants were chosen by the British for their long life and resistance. As with wine, flavors vary according to soil type. The tea bushes are regularly pruned to bush size, but left to their own devices, they can grow to between 5 and 8 meters. In Ceylon, the terminal bud is called a tip. The choice of what to harvest from the shrub determines the type of picking and therefore the grade in the classification. Harvesting, carried out exclusively by women, takes place several times a year, up to four times or more depending on the region. Plucking takes place in rounds of four to fourteen days, while the tea bush renews itself. Imperial plucking", originally carried out by virgins, involves picking only the final bud and sometimes the first leaf afterwards. Fine picking" consists of the terminal bud and the first two leaves. Those that pick the tip and the first three leaves remain of very high quality. It's easy to see why this type of harvest cannot be mechanized. The filled baskets are then taken to nearby factories, where the leaves are processed according to strict standards. The quality and finesse of the harvest depend on the entire process. So, from year to year, no two batches from the same garden will ever be identical. Before it can be brewed in simmering water, the tea undergoes a major transformation process that comprises 6 stages.
Withering: this removes some of the moisture from the freshly harvested leaves. This operation takes between 18 and 32 hours.
Rolling: the purpose of this operation is to release the enzymes contained in the leaves, which will enable better fermentation.
Fermentation: the leaves are placed in a hot, humid oven for between 1 and 3 hours. This is a random process that depends on the skill and experience of the grower, who decides how long it lasts.
Drying: fermentation is halted by a drying process in which the leaves are exposed to a temperature of 90° for around twenty minutes.
Sieving: the leaves are sorted according to size.
Screening: after careful sieving, the leaves are separated into pieces and whole leaves. Finally, the leaves are packed.
All these production stages take place close to the plantations, in tea factories. This ensures that the tea retains its original freshness and aroma. Tea is classified according to the nature of the tea plant, the region of production, the elevation of the plantation (high quality teas are generally grown at altitudes above 1,500 m), the quality of the plucking (buds, leaves), the nature of the processing (fermentation)... The classification into various appellations is therefore highly regulated, and consequently defines the price of the tea. High-quality tea generally bears the name of the plantation from which it comes. Pure Ceylon tea is usually accompanied by a yellow logo featuring a lion with a sword.
A visit to a tea factory is an unmissable experience of a stay on the island. Among the most interesting are Damro Labookellie Tea Lounge and Blue Field Tea Garden in Ramboda (near Nuwara Eliya), Mlesna Tea Castle St. Clair in Patanha, and Uva Halpewatte Tea Factory in Ella. Visits are usually free of charge, and after witnessing the transformation process, a tasting session is offered, with of course the possibility of buying the tea produced on site. And if you'd like to stay in the heart of a plantation, Heritance Tea Factory and Tea & Experience Factory - Mandaram Nuwara in Nuwara Eliya are the places to stay.
Pioneers
James Taylor. This Scotsman left London at the age of 17 to go to Ceylon. In the mid-1860s, he visited India to learn the basics of tea growing. He fomented the project of planting tea in the garden where he worked, the Loolecondera Estate in Delthota (35 km southeast of Kandy and 75 km northwest of Nuwara Eliya). This 8-hectare plantation, named "Field 7", was very successful and became the first commercially exploited tea plantation on the island. In 1872, he set up a factory on his property in Loolecondera, equipped with machines invented by him, which enabled him to increase production spectacularly and to offer tea in its packaging. The export of tea from Ceylon explodes. By the end of the 1870s, most of the island's coffee plantations were supplanted by tea cultivation. In 1890, James Taylor meets in Australia a certain Thomas Lipton who will make known the tea to Europe. In Ceylon, tea becomes a major economic stake, the big British companies seize the control on the plantations and the small farmers like Taylor are ousted from the production chain. On May 2, 1892, barely a year after he was pilloried, James Taylor died of dysentery at the age of 57. He was buried in the Mahayyawa cemetery in Kandy. One year later, Ceylon tea is presented to the world at the Chicago World's Fair..
Sir Thomas Lipton. Thomas Lipton was born in Glasgow in 1848. His Irish parents, who owned a small grocery store, certainly gave him a taste for business. He left school at an early age to work on a small steamship that ran between Glasgow and Belfast. He was fascinated by the stories of sailors who left for the United States, and at the age of 15, he set sail to work in Uncle Sam's country. There he discovered the formidable assets of advertising through his various professional experiences. In 1870, he returned to Glasgow to help his parents with their small business and opened his own grocery store a year later, Lipton's Market. He then put into practice his advertising skills learned in the USA and it was a success! Lipton perpetuated his business with the creation of the first chain of stores in Glasgow. Ten years later, he had about twenty shops, but he was always on the lookout for new opportunities. In 1890, he went to British Ceylon with an idea in mind: to popularize and democratize tea, which at the time was considered a luxury product. He met James Taylor with whom he did business. Lipton puts into practice the same idea that made the success of his grocery stores: to supply himself at the source and thus to eliminate the superfluous costs of the intermediaries. He managed to lower the price of tea by buying plantations himself. After three weeks on the island, he owned seven plantations, including the famous Dambatenne plantation. He applied his business methods to tea: targeted advertising, careful packaging, an easily recognizable brand and logo, and an unstoppable slogan: "Direct from the tea garden to the tea pot ". He was the first to sell tea in individual tins with the proper brewing instructions clearly written on the tin! His business was a huge success, he quickly became rich and the name Lipton became an internationally recognized brand. Thomas Lipton became the official tea supplier to Queen Victoria in 1895, and was knighted on January 18, 1898. In 1924, he even made the cover of the famous Time magazine. Sir Thomas Lipton died on October 2, 1931 in the suburbs of London, but his legacy lives on today. In Sri Lanka, a statue has been erected in his honor at the very place where he supervised his tea plantations, Lipton's Seat in Haputale.
