The Wonder of Ceylon Tea

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The Wonder of Ceylon Tea

(Note: Ceylon is now called Sri Lanka.)

A story of tea wonder as it happened on a tiny island nation 270 miles long by 140 miles wide.

Originally, in the mid and late 1700’s, attempts to raise tea in Ceylon met with failure (or at the very least, were not as successful as would have been hoped). In fact, a Mr. Wolf, in 1782, wrote in a report the following: "Tea, and some other sorts of elegant aromatics, are not to be found here (Ceylon). Some trials have been made to rear them, but without success." He was referring to numerous attempts made by the Dutch to grow China genus, species and cultivars.

The newspaper The London Observer published on July 25, 1802, carried the following: "A late attempt has been made by a naturalist of eminence to cultivate the tea plant in the island of Ceylon, but, notwithstanding, almost all the trees, plants, and flowers of this part of the globe seem collected there the experiment has totally failed."

Later, in 1826, there was a native population rumor of a Ceylon indigenous tea plant. Though search teams scoured the island nation, none was ever found. It was later verified that the plant was actually Cassia auriculata (called "Ranawara" by these same natives) and that the leaves were infused as a substitute for tea. Ranawara took on the name "the matara tea tree" even though it was not tea as such. The leaves are very similar to tea leaves, even to the serrated edge. A British General of the time sent samples to the Royal Botanic Garden in Calcutta, calling it "Ceylon tea." The samples were not accepted and thus the issue died.

The British Governor, Sir Edward Barnes, was the party responsible for building a road from the coastal city of Colombo to the interior highland city of Kandy. He later extended it to the Nuwara Eliya region, for the purpose of establishing a health resort there, thus providing the road system necessary to access the excellent growing conditions needed for the successful tea plantations that followed.

The tea plantations did not emerge as a result of prior planning. They and the crop of tea were the singular result of a coffee leaf infestation of insects. Yes, Ceylon was, in the middle of the last century, a major producer of coffee. And even before that, a major producer of spices. The disaster finally led to the planting of tea bush seeds and seedlings, since tea bushes were immune to the leaf infestation. In retrospect (and, of course, as one who did not suffer financial loss) the coffee disaster has been a boon to the world of tea drinkers. But it was not an easy progression. After the ‘blight’ killed the coffee trees, cinchona seeds were planted. The bark of this tree is the source (or was during this time period) of Quinine. For a short time cinchona trees helped ward off plantation bankruptcy but the inevitable was on the march ever so slowly.

Prior to the coffee blight striking Ceylon, tea had been somewhat of a test crop, an experiment on a limited scale. As the decade of the 1830’s closed, tea seeds from India were brought to Ceylon. Specifically, these seeds came from an area in the northeast of India called Assam. And, even more specifically, from the sub-species known as Assam Indigenous. Later, in the 1840’s, cuttings, seeds and seedlings from the Chinese province of Yunnan, from the sub-species known as Yunnan and other Chinese, were brought to Ceylon. These were planted in the Pussellawa growing district of Ceylon. These Chinese tea beginnings were on the tea plantations in the Labookelle group. During this same 1840’s time frame, the Dimbula tea-growing district was opened to tea production.

This article will be followed by what I hope to be many more articles about Ceylon’s tea history and Ceylon tea. I have only taken the reader up to the years of the 1840’s; we still have another 150 years to go to bring us up to the present.

I am particularly interested in giving the reader some of the early background of tea in Ceylon and giving the reader the opportunity to build a ladder to the present. For example: Some customers tell me they love Ceylon tea but cannot abide with Assam tea or China tea. Ceylon tea is both of these teas. They have, of course, taken on their own characteristics as a result of growing in Ceylon; they have even been hybridized but, none-the-less, the original seeds came from Assam and China.

In conclusion of this article I should like to say that both the 1782 comment of Mr. Wolf (first paragraph above) and the 1802 article in The London Observer (second paragraph above) show little talent in prophecy.

The Tea Man

TeaTalk

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