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Sri Lanka’s Tea Trails By Cindy-Lou Dale |
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Four thousand feet above the Indian Ocean, in the central highlands of Sri Lanka, lies Bogawantalawa Valley, known as the Golden Valley of Tea and home to old Ceylon, the country’s former name, synonymous with the world’s finest tea. Myths and legends surround the arrival of tea plantations in Ceylon, but in reality it was due to the skill and foresight of Sir James Taylor, a Scottish coffee plantation manger, who initially experimented with just nineteen acres of tea in 1867. Three years later the colonial coffee plantations were struck by a rotting fungus. Within a few short years of the coffee crop failure, the island’s plantations changed to tea and today Ceylon is the world's largest tea exporter. The tea sector in Ceylon is a vital component of the economy. It’s the country's largest employer, both directly and indirectly, to over one-million people. Ceylon’s very best teas draw their distinctive essence and flavour from the stimulating environmental conditions of the mountainous regions of the hill country.
Following my gaze to the colourful swirls interspersed amongst the tea bushes, Andrew smiled. “It is said that only small and agile feminine hands, and the patience of the female temperament, can achieve high yield plucking.” This interpretation aside, quite clearly plucking tea leaves requires exacting skills and nimble fingers.
He explained medium-grown and high-grown territories, which are further subdivided into western (Dimbula) and eastern (Uva) regions. “Teas from these regions have their own characteristics that depend on factors like the direction of the slope, weather conditions at plucking time, and climatic conditions like temperature. Cool nights, for example, produce a better tea.” Where the transition takes place “The secret of producing a good quality tea,” Andrew said, “is in the precise timing of each process along the way. Whatever feelings of unhurried tranquillity the plantations may have evoked, the opposite was true of the stifling hot and dimly lit tea factory where barefoot labourers toiled amid a jumble of roaring mechanical contraptions. Andrew broke off to speak with a supervisor, slipping into fluent Sinhala, one of Ceylon’s official languages. The others are English and Tamil, spoken mostly in the north. He went on to explain that it is a common misconception that black and green tea leaves are derived from two different plants. “They are in fact from the same bush, Camellia Sinensis, the only difference is that green tea is unfermented tea while black tea is oxidized and turned into black tea by drying. In green tea production, the leaves are first steamed to prevent any fermentation taking place, then sun-dried and pan-roasted, while with black tea, the leaves are withered, rolled, oxidized and dried in high heat.” Andrew’s voice was all but lost amongst the deafening factory noises. He pointed out a machine and detailed the happenings of the mechanical rolling process.
The process continued on to roll breaking, a procedure that separates the twisted balls of leaves and allows them to cool. The roll-breaker is a long, mechanised sieve that vibrates while pushing the leaves over the mesh from one end to the other. The leaves are then fired and dried for 21 minutes in an enormous dryer on a series of trays exposing them to temperatures as high as 260°F (120°C). If the drying period is too short, the leaves may become mouldy in time; too long, and the flavour becomes a bitter and caramelised. Before packing, the dry leaves are graded and sorted by vibrating sieves into two main categories, namely whole leaf and broken leaf, and then still further subdivided.
How the tea is graded “Ceylon’s fragrant liquor teas are famed the world over for the luxuriously full bodied, sharp black leaves that come from these hills,” Andrew announced. Purists flinch at the notion of adding sugar and milk to tea, but it works well with a sweet breakfast or afternoon pastry. Unlike pale-pink or jade-green Oriental brews, the average tea lover finds the familiar golden buttercup hues of black tea, somewhat more pleasing. To experience life on a working tea estate I reserved a suite at one of the Ceylon Tea Trails four converted colonial bungalows which were originally built for the British tea estate managers in the days of the Raj. Now, sitting on the shaded veranda overlooking Norwood Estate, Andrew critically inspected the contents of a tea pot placed before him; then dutifully went about pouring me a brew. “This tea was given almost no oxidation time,” he said, pointing an accusing finger at the cup. “I’d say it’s given the final product a characteristic rawness.” I nodded, agreeing with what tasted like a mouthful of amber liquid infused with something remarkably silken. “The flavour is extraordinarily bright and invigorating,” Andrew pursed his lips; this particular tea evidently soothed his soul. “This is a creation of the slow growing altitude.” He closed his eyes, savouring the after-taste. After a moment he continued. “Ceylon’s tea grades are encoded in obscure initials on the packaging, identifying the grade of leaf.” He spoke to a member of staff, asking for a few samples of sealed packs to be brought to the table and spent the next hour dutifully explaining the tea grading process to me. It’s all in the tasting “A producer tastes his tea merely for quality control purposes and then the broker does a tasting and informs buyers as to what qualities are available. In turn the broker advises on the requirements of the buyers. The buyers also do a tasting, either to assess the broker’s appraisal prior to purchase or for blending purposes. However, we deal directly with the buyers who all have expert palates and can instantly establish any miscalculations in the production process.”
Sri Lanka’s Tea
Guerrillas Spearheading the commodity culture of multi-origin blends some thirty years ago, ruthless traders began acquiring the many family owned, quality oriented tea brands. Those brands that did not willingly sell out were doomed to bankruptcy.
“My father created Dilmah Tea in 1988, providing tea lovers around the world with a single origin pure Ceylon tea, and a personal guarantee of distinctive quality and absolute freshness.” Dilmah is the world’s first fully integrated family tea company that grows, picks, processes, packages and markets tea under its own international brand-name. The brand is marketed in about 80 countries. “Most products stamped “Fair Trade”are typically littered with three to five middlemen who wedge themselves between the tea farmer and the consumer,” Malik paused for reflection. “This means poverty stricken farmers remain penniless as the middleman purchases their crops at very low prices, seldom enough for the farmers to cover their production costs.” “Earnings from Dilmah remain in Sri Lanka,” Malik continued. “We focus on business ethics and social responsibility by sharing our proceeds with our workers and the community, reinvesting in the industry, and making tea a sustainable commodity for all.” As the world’s top tea exporter for 2006, Sri Lanka’s tea industry earned $850-million dollars in 2006 ($750-million in 2005) by exporting 327-million kilograms of black tea (309-million kilograms in 2005). Merrill Fernando, the founder of Dilmah and known as the “Godfather of Tea,” strode into reception where I was waiting for my driver. He had a certain Nelson Mandela air about him. We exchanged smiles when he saw my parcel of tea. “Our tea is different,” he said “I know you’ll like it.” Mile High Club “Depends,” I said, “got any Jaggery?” She looked at me with a touch of wonder. “No Jaggery here, I’m afraid, but as we’re the country’s official airline we consider ourselves ambassadors to Ceylon’s best.” She produced a distinctively marked “T” tin of Dilmah. We swapped smiles. “Go on then,” I said, inclining my head at my cup. I considered the destiny of the sweet-scented leaves as they travelled to their final destinations and envisioned well dressed tea-trays in homes around the world, bearing scones and china tea pots, warm milk and sugar lumps. Andrew Taylor’s easy smile came to mind. “Splendid stuff, wouldn’t you say?” Visit www.dilmahtea.com |
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Set in a deep bowl of
emerald velvet was a small, mist-shrouded village stirring to
wakefulness. The first golden rays of dawn unfolded across a dewy
plantation of shimmering mint-coloured tea bushes, as trim as urban
hedgerows, punctuated by scarlet and turquoise coloured saris of the
early shift tea pickers. Their poised silhouettes, slightly stooped,
merged with the tea bushes. This was a landscape so timeless and
fetching, so companionably rooted to an ancient past it all but
reduced me to verbal paralysis.
I stood beside Andrew
Taylor, whose ancestral lineage dates back to Sir James, the
founding father of Ceylon tea. We quietly surveyed the glorious
swathes of intensely green tea acreage containing some of the
original tea bushes planted by Sir James. I was spellbound by the
vivid saris of the women, whose hands resembled butterflies flitting
over the shrubs, moving independently of one another. They nipped
off the youngest and topmost leaves by snapping the stem with a
sharp movement of the index and middle fingers, then tossing their
pickings into large baskets on their backs.
“The withered leaves are rolled, actually it’s
more of a twisting and crushing action, which causes the cell walls
to break down, releasing the leaves’ green tannin, which gives tea
its distinctive flavour. The more the leaf is twisted and broken the
more superior its strength and flavour.” He considered his statement
for a moment, then added. “Historically this was done in the palm of
the hand, but was considered unsanitary and now the rolling
machines’ rotating metal disks perform this task.”
Heavily discounted
multi-origin blend supermarket teas all but guaranteed a nosedive in
quality, creating in its place brand-name consumer dependency. As
such, almost any tea brand bought today is a commodity tea, made
from a blend of thirty or more countries.