Tea and its distant past, a history of its origin and proliferation over the centuries

by ACB Pethiyagoda

It is presumed that the first newspaper advertisement connected to tea sales appeared in the London Mercurius Politicos of September 23, 1658. It read: “That excellent and by all physicians approved China drink called by the Chinese Teha, by other nations Tay alias Tee is sold at Cophee House, London.”

It is also presumed that brewed tea was a fashionable drink among the wealthiest in society as they thought it ‘cleans the spleen, kidneys, eyes, liver, improves the appetite, digestion, cures fevers, colds, dropsy, scurvy” and many other ailments and maladies. In short a `kokatath thailaya’!

Origin of the brew

From where did this wonder find its way to Europe? China. Tea was known in that country during the Han Dynasty (206 BC -220 AD) as evidenced from archaeological findings in more recent times. It started first as a cottage industry to serve royalty and nobility and thereafter developed into a large scale, well organized industry. Therefore, by the time of the Tang Dynasty (220 AD – 618 AD), it was a popular national drink among all classes.

The origin of tea goes back beyond 200 or 300 BC. The story goes that when a king broke journey while traveling and when cooking was in progress, some dried leaves of a wild tree were blown into a pot of boiling water. The brew was pleasant and invigorating. The Assamese, not to be left out, claimed a similar experience. With them it was not a king but native tribes who found the brew good.

Tea was introduced to England and other European countries by the East India Company – a company formed in 1600 AD in England with extensive trading connections all over the East. It owned a fleet of ships; large extents of land in various countries; and had an army to further its business interests and protect its officers. By 1839 indigenous tea was well established in Assam in plantations owned by the East India Company and British entrepreneurs. There was also tea of Chinese origin from seed brought by the Company way back in the late 1700s.

Darjeeling, about 7,000 ft above sea level, was another area in which by 1789 there were a hundred estates covering over 18,000 acres producing excellent teas with a distinctive natural fragrance making these the benchmark against which other teas were compared. Darjeeling teas are like champagne from the Champagne region of France!

To encourage rapid expansion of tea plantations in India, the British leased land to prospectors on easy terms – the first quarter of the extent free of rent for all time, the balance rent free for fifteen years and thereafter payment at nominal rates.

Tea growing in Nilgiris in South India came in later – around the 1880s and still later in some African countries, Burma, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Early planters

The first European planters in India were “in those days a strange medley of retired or cashiered Army and Navy officers, medical men, stable keepers, clerks and goodness knows who besides”. Their bungalows were of wattle and daub with thatched roofs. They ate rough, worked tirelessly, drank hard and believed that liquor kept malaria and cholera away. Death due to these was common and their incidence among the workers widespread.

Most of the early planters came out single but “some took Indian mistresses, usually surreptitiously, for there was no prospect of such women being accepted in European society. Such liaisons would be invariable for a new planter wanting to understand a totally new culture and learn the language. These sleeping dictionaries were a feature of planting life and were tolerated if discreet.”

Tea is a labour intensive crop – about 1.25 units of labour per acre for mature tea and 1.5 for land in tea with more land being opened up. This requirement was satisfied locally and any shortfall being made good from the neighbourhood. Workers lived under appalling conditions in makeshift shelters and were treated harshly with whipping of men, women and children as punishment for poor output until 1843 when slavery was abolished in British India. High mortality was due mainly to illness. difficult and unhealthy working conditions and malnutrition. Clerks, supervisors and other staff were drawn from educated locals.

Sri Lankan history

In Ceylon, cinchona was the first plantation crop with about 4,000 acres in 1883 but it went bust when the price of quinine, its commercial product, dropped drastically the world over. The investors in land were the British officials including the Governor and the Chief Justice. The first lands leased were around Kandy, Gampola, Dolosbage and Kadugannawa in around 1825 – just 10 years after the signing of the Kandyan Convention; the British losing no time in the plunder.

Most of this land “was regarded as crown land and available for acquisition by any and everyone with a fair skin. Any title the natives of Ceylon might have had was ignored and much common land was sequestered. In addition, although this was illegal, the inhabitants of entire villages inconveniently located in the midst of land required by the British were expelled.” The adverse effects of this Draconian law – the Waste Lands Ordinance – is still evident in the Kandyan areas.

Coffee was planted on a small scale from Dutch times in Ceylon and became a replacement for cinchona with about 37,000 acres in 1845. In 1869, the coffee rust (Hemileia vastatrix) wiped the crop out. Fortunately for the planters, tea was already known and accepted as a profitable crop and the lands cleared for coffee were gradually planted in tea.

Labour for coffee and later tea was mainly from South India brought by contractors or kanganies to whom planters paid for every able bodied man, woman or even child who could be put to work. From the wages of the workers, the kanganies collected ‘pence money’, a levy for recruiting them, which they had to pay throughout their working lives. The labourers were eternally in debt, while the kanganies often became wealthy.

The workers’ lives were hard but probably better than that in the villages they left in South India which were often racked with famine. The first batches came along the ‘North Road’ – Talaimannar to the Hill Country through thick jungle with many dying on the way. In later years, limited numbers were brought by boat to Colombo, mostly for the low country estates.

Just as in India, “The early planters of the 19th century had come in via coffee and were mostly working class. They might have been trained gardeners, or perhaps served in the ranks of the army. Their manners were rough, especially if they were single.” All this did not prevent them from assuming the ranks of Captain, Major etc depending on the size of the plantation and their success as planters!

The history of tea in Ceylon goes back to 1839 when some seed from Assam was put out in what was to be the Royal Botanical Gardens in Peradeniya. (The Gardens were established by the British in 1921 where previously this area was the pleasure garden of the Kandyan kings). Since then consignments of seed and even seedlings were received and planted in various parts of the present day tea growing areas; Rothschild in Pussellawa and Labookelle Estates in Ramboda being the first two and Hakgalla Gardens also.

However, the first commercial planting was on Loolecondra Estate in Hewaheta – a block of 19 acres by the famous James Taylor in 1867. Since then the acreage increased gradually to 9,300 in 1880, 525,600 in 2002, and 548,263 in 2011.

Today when we see attractive advertisements in glossy magazines of steaming tea in bone China cups with silver spoons, jugs and bowls on crisp linen; and row upon row of tea in eye catching packs in grocery stores, how many realize that these are the result of untold hardships suffered by countless men, women and children; from about 200 years before Christ for millions of others to enjoy now without a second thought. There are many other benefits we are recipients of and little thought is given to them. If this was not so we would grumble less when minor situations go wrong.

References:

A Brief History of Tea by Roy Maxham A Hundred Years of Ceylon Tea by D M Forrrest

(This article was first published in this newspaper in Oct. 2012. The late writer was a senior tea planter who later worked for Ceylon Tobacco Co. in its agricultural development projects)