History of Ceylon Tea

Certain characteristics have determined the way in which the production of tea has developed on the Island. These aspects have included not only the extremes of climate but also the physical nature of the countryside. Here is a breakdown of some of those influences.

Climate: N.B. S/West  rains April-June
   
Monsoons:South/West (heavy)April to June/July
 North/East (light)October/December
 Temperatures:near sea level  80F can be very humid.
 Nuwara Eliya59 F Sometimes frost at night.
   
Geography:
 Travelling  Colombo– KandyApprox 70 miles rises 1,687 feet
 Colombo– Nuwara EliyaApprox 118 miles rises 6,230 feet
 Length of island270 Miles
 Width of140 Miles. Average 100 miles
Total island area25,332 sq miles
Area of central mountains4,212 sq miles
Highest mountainPiduruthalagala8,292 ft. Often known as Pedro

For some 48 miles from Colombo the road travels through fairly undulating countryside having started at sea level and rising in that distance to no more than 650 feet. From either the Mawanella road or the other road the road then suddenly climbs into the mountains via passes and in the next 20 miles the road rises some 900 to 1,000 feet arriving at Kandy. The road from Kandy to Hatton and Maskeliya takes the traveller up on through hilly country rising to 4,000 and then 5,000 feet in some 45 miles. Or on the Rambodda pass road to Nuwara Eliya, 45 miles takes us to the town which lies on a plateau at 6,000 feet. Anywhere South of Kandy in the mountains means climbing roads. 

The early development of this island was one reliant on agriculture. Early chronicles relate to the coming of an early civilization over 2,500 – 3,000 years ago, which settled in the North and Eastern sector of the country, a relatively low lying area, that is the dry zone. In order to establish the major city of that time, it was necessary to construct some amazing feats of engineering in cutting canals to divert the great Mahaweli river that rises in the central tea hills at the area called the Horton Plains which happens to be the source for all the larger rivers and the Mahaweli then meanders North East exiting near Trincomalee harbour. Initially it appears that the early water storage system relied in a depression in the ground but later developed in large dammed areas called tanks.

This development was possible because of the very advanced engineering skills that these people brought with them from the far North central area of India. These  skills have been examined from the time that a British shooting party stumbled across the ancient city of Anuradhapura situated right in the centre of this Northern area and only in the 1950’s onwards were these skills fully understood. Large scale excavations were started in the British period by amateurs and now progressing under UNESCO using international funds. The first skill base was the ability to cut and divert waters via canals that ran to very finite levels of fall with the primitive tools of the day, something that can only be achieved with advanced technology to-day. Then came the acquisition of the skill to construct a  ‘Biso-kotuwa’, this was a rock sluice, using the placement of a one or two large boulders at the base of the reservoir (called tanks in the island) that could be manoeuvred over a smooth granite stone base to close or open the outfall. The whole area is covered in ‘tanks’ that received the water from the diverting canals and then held it until released via the sluice system into further delivery canals to the rice fields to grow the rice that was required to maintain this highly civilized society which developed and prospered. This complex society was based on a line of 123 kings, who used Tamil mercenaries to protect them from Tamil incursions, invading from India but which eventually weakened them and drove them successively South and finally to their final stand in the Kandyan hills. It is interesting to note that the first Tamil king appeared in 180 BC and that the last King who surrendered the Kandyan kingdom to the British in 1815 was of mixed Tamil and Sinhalese descent. This shows the involvement of the Jaffna Tamils who settled here at that time, having driven out this advanced society from their two great cities in the North East. Later I may mention the Tamils of the estates but the two communities are not the same. The latter were encouraged to come by the British when large numbers of workers were required to clear and plant the plantations. The Sinhalese, who had their own lands to tend, could not commit themselves wholly to this on a day to day basis. This harnessing of the North, with the first tank of water, allowed the development of crops required to sustain a population and with each tank that the Kings developed came greater & greater prosperity for the community and later its culture based on Buddhism.

The Portuguese came seeking the world famous spices, particularly Cinnamon in 1505. They were replaced by the Dutch in 1658 at the invitation of the King to replace increasing demands of the Portuguese and finally the British in 1796 again at the invitation of the King to rid him of his grasping occupiers. We are unable to continue a history lesson here but hopefully this will help any readers not conversant with Ceylon (Sri Lankan) history, to understand the island and its people better than appears to be the case from comments over the last thirty years by media commentators and some educational ‘experts’.

Picture above is of the old Pen-Y-Lan bungalow with the hills where the coffee fungus was detected by Gardiner.

Coffee

With the coming of the British in the early 1800’s came the establishment of coffee plantations as the crop to finance the development of the island. One of my ancestors arrived in the island with the Royal Artillery in 1807 at the time that the British replaced the Dutch and initially most of the army was based in Colombo. Indeed John Blackett is recorded as having arrived with Royal Artillery (R.A.) and the first James Blackett, my Great great grandfather,  is recorded as being born in Colombo in 1808. By 1815 Kandy had been subdued with the help of one or two of the King’s dissenting ministers, his cruelty sickened even some of the Sinhalese. Once it had been taken, enormous resources were put into cutting roads and building bridges. The highlands were a veritable natural fortress and certain passes had to be used to gain access, such as the famous road at Kadugannawa. The army were the obvious engineers for this development. James Blackett and Alexander Brown amongst others, were both involved in the roads and bridges from Gampola – Kandy – Peradeniya and then towards Pussellawa. By about 1826 The Public Works Department was in being and taking over from the army officers. It was also at this time that Col Bird looked at opening the first coffee plantation near Gampola. The de Soysa family were also planting coffee close to Kandy and these two were considered the first plantations in the island. The island had found a source of funds , through coffee expansion to pay for increasing development. The acreage was mushrooming at lightening speed. • In 1837 there were 4,000 acres of coffee recorded  • In 1860 the records showed 40,000 acres and this peaked in about 1870  It is generally recorded that the Hemelia Vastatrix fungus that decimated the coffee industry started in 1865 whereas in fact George Gardner (head of Peradeniya research unit and originally from Kew in London) filed a report stating that he had seen the fungus in 1845 on a mountain ridge when visiting Pen-Y-Lan estate which belonged to the Blacketts in Dolosbage district. The fungus denuded the trees and planters  took to planting at higher elevations, believing that they could escape it but with no Research Institute, disaster was on its way. Some families like Alexander Brown had acquired some 30 estates by then. He was a successful partner in an agency/banking firm in Kandy named, Gerard Brown and Co. Having become a millionaire by 1873 he had lost all of this and clung on to one estate at the end, dying a broken man in 1876 being buried at Mahaiyawa cemetery Kandy. Many families were in the same position and their estates were either sold extremely cheaply, could not be given away and merely abandoned. Blackett managed to hold on and many estates tried alternative crops, planting Chinchona between the coffee. The price of Chinchona, initially a good investment eventually plummeted with the increased cropping and other crops were sought. Tea had been brought over from India as early as 1845 and was growing in a small plot at Pen-y-Lan, Blackett later used some of the seed from that plot, to replace his ailing coffee. These plants were part of three batches distributed by Gardner to three estates at different elevations. Then in the middle of this struggle when men started to marry and have families, came disease and strolling through the cemeteries confirms how many children died in infancy. Then again in 1865 came disease for the coffee tree and the need to start again and build again. For those who hung on, it would have been heartbreaking to pull out their beloved coffee trees, clear again and hole the ground to take the new tea seed, establishing the hillsides in green again. In a family that has survived six generations of this, there is bound to be an amazing bond to this industry. That era learnt many lessons without any doubt and those harsh experiences drove the future development of tea industry. After 1865 the establishment of the Planters Association and the Tea Research Institute (T.R.I) were both direct results of the trauma and pain of that time, never again would planters be left to watch helplessly as their life’s work disintegrated before them. Below is quoted an extract from De profundis by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that was specific to the heroics of the early Ceylon planters and the disasters that they overcame to mould the present industry to-day. It is often felt that planters made their fortunes and had an easy life. That only applied to planters after 1930 in my view. Some were looking at tea and by 1867 tea was being planted in fields, rather than trials. The reversal was dramatic as the extract below relates. From utter despair and penury to endless green acres: ‘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 reference to Waterloo brings to mind another connection with this event and the island. For both the victory at Waterloo and the final taking of Kandy in the island of Ceylon were both announced on the same day in the London Gazette. It is important to understand the progression of the planting system and the conditions that these planters lived with. In the early days of coffee planting, the planters purchased blocks of Crown lands from the government. These were usually blocks of either 50 acres or 100 acres. One such purchase document for Blackett shows just over 50 acres at £52 and then proceeds to describe the boundaries. The items that early pioneer planters needed for a long stay in the hills clearing the jungle had to be purchased in Colombo. The planter’s purchases were loaded onto several bullock carts or carts drawn by elephants on a journey of some 133 kilometers arriving at the relevant block of land. The pioneer planter would have recruited some Tamil labour from Southern India. Initially this labour came on a seasonal basis to crop the coffee with few resident workers. With the coming of tea labour was required on a daily basis all year round. The priority was to make a clearing near a source of water for what were called lines, these are a series of long mud walled huts with grass thatched rooves for the workers duplicating the housing that they left behind in Southern India, each line was composed of about eight rooms each with a verandah, each room housed a worker and any family he brought with him. The owner’s quarters were of the same construction as his workers (about 12 x 6 feet in size) with a bed, a table and one chair plus all his stores and equipment to open the land with. The next vital element was to create a nursery for originally the coffee and then the tea plants close to the stream, although in fact the hills contained many natural springs. Often the land was virgin jungle (forest), in hilly country with steep valleys. The system for clearing was to part cut the trees starting at the lowest point, travelling upwards to the crest of the hill where the top line of trees were partly cut and at the command these trees were cut through falling down the hillside like dominoes creating a toppling effect right down the hill side. These early estates were relatively small but with the coffee crash they were swallowed up by neighbouring estates and they are still identified to this day as the division of the larger estates. They varied in size from about 100 to 300 acres in which the largest tea field might extend to 50 acres. One such estate called Le Vallon has six divisions: Le Vallon, New Forest, Galloway Knowe, Rajatalawa, Colgrain and Hermitage. All these are estates that appear in the old records. Hermitage had one field right at the top, near the rocky ridge which has now reverted to jungle with 30 foot tea trees which is called Sweeting Kadu (Kadu =jungle) to this day after Sweeting who opened it. The field below it pruned in the 1960’s, yielded some 12 to 18 snakes (vipers) being killed during a days work around the feet of the pruners. This was about average for each pruning season in that field as it was close to the jungle above. So long as the assistant manager entered the field and pruned with the workers they completed their quota of bushes for the days work called a ‘kanak’ (Tamil) otherwise we would have a ‘go slow’ on our hands. Many of the old letters and records from the families were lost or destroyed. Their lives were turned upside down in the 1860’s with the failing of coffee. However it has been generally accepted that James Taylor was probably the first person to plant a commercial area of tea and crop it. He planted No.7 field on Loolecondera estate with seed in 1867, some 19 acres in extent. He was a manager at the time earning £8-6-8d per month (£8-33p). There has been much discussion as to whether Nagastenne, Pen-y-Lan or Condegalla were the first places having tea. Until some family documents are found with any other evidence, it was James Taylor who was first. He was a huge man over 6 feet and 17.5 stones in weight. When he died in May 1892, his coffin was carried from the estate to the Mahaiyawa cemetery in Kandy where so many planting families are buried. Two gangs of twelve men from the estate took it in turns to carry him. In those early days there was a bond between owner and worker, both working together to establish a dream. That connection between owner and worker from the early days of mud huts for all is lost today with Sinhalese controlled companies. However there is a different respectful relationship between the two communities because the Sinhalese companies and government have been committed to creating better and more modern conditions for their workers. The progression of the European owner from mud hut to stone bungalow, many of them stand to day as memorials to that era of development, was viewed as a desirable confirmation of security by the Tamil workers for their own jobs and a place to raise families of their own. The men who carved these estates then were undoubtedly often correctly referred to as made of steel, hard working and hard drinking. The life moulded them and most of us cannot possibly comprehend what it was like then. Men on their own thousands of miles from home building that future industry in conditions that no planter would work in to day. Seeing others in the area infrequently but when it happened there was much drinking and storytelling. From this harsh beginning flowered the beauty that is the estate of today and flourishing clubs for each area, fostering inter club rivalry at sport. The greatest rivalry was between up-country (planters) and Colombo (the agents).

Tea

Tea is usually stated to have been discovered as a drink by the Chinese. When is not certain but there is a story that would place it back some 3,000 years B.C. They always maintained that it was a health supporting drink. To-day scientists are trying to divine the basis of that statement as with so many hunches from the past. However, to return to the facts of the present. Tea or Camelia Sinensis was classified in planting terms into two main Jats (types). 1. The China  jat, a small leafed bush which is a tough leaf and in my opinion contributes to flavour. 2. The Assam  jat, a much larger fleshy leaf, tending to the look of modern VP clones, chosen initially for their yield and disease resistance rather than flavour. Some observers would quote the Indo-Chi.

Picture above is of Doteloya Factory converted by the family from coffee to tea and today hugely successful with a large area of original rain forest still preserved as an important wildlife habitat.
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