I'm sure like us when you think of getting an Uber it means getting a car, right? Well, in Colombo and Kandy, Sri Lanka, you also have the option of an Uber tuk tuk! That's what we hired to take us for the 30-minute ride from our hilltop abode to the Ceylon Tea Museum located on a beautiful hill across the valley. The cost was an almost embarrassing 220LKR or Sri Lankan Rupee which was equivalent to about $1.40.
The leaf is then transferred to drying machines which are iron chambers fitted with trays. Hot air forced into the chamber stops the oxidization/fermentation process which ensures that the black-colored tea leaf will keep until it is brewed. It was neat being able to climb up the small ladder and peer into the 1898 Sirocco SemiAutomatic 6-Tray-Tilting Downdraught Drier that dried tea for 12-24 minutes. The dryer's capacity was 75 pounds of tea an hour with a yard of firewood being used.
Lipton, also another Scot, was born in 1950 and opened his first grocery store at just 21 in his native city of Glasgow. He had over 300 shops in the United Kingdom, stretching from the north of Scotland to the tip of England by the time he was 40. His tea received royal approval from the British, Italian and Spanish monarchies. A committed yachtsman, Lipton competed five times unsuccessfully to wrest the America's Cup from the New York Yacht Club. He was so admired by Americans he was presented with a Loving Cup as the world's greatest loser!
Lipton recognized the possibility of tea as a new commodity for his shops and, on a trip to Australia in 1890, detoured to Ceylon to examine the proposition for himself. He was to revolutionize the tea industry. After buying up coffee plantations that had suffered a blight, he was able to control quality and price by cutting out the middleman and therefore make it more affordable for working-class families.
Nowadays Lipton is remembered apart from his yachting almost exclusively as a tea merchant though he was a self-made millionaire at 40 before he entered the tea business. Tea made Lipton a multi-millionaire before he died in 1931 at the age of 81.
Visiting the museum, I should have expected to learn about the health benefits of tea and we did! In modern times, degenerative diseases such as stroke, cancer, heart disease and diabetes are on the increase and among the top ten causes of death after the age of 45 as we all know. Scientists and nutritionists are increasingly looking at the beneficial components of diets. According to what we read, research studies carried out at the Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka and internationally show that regular consumption of both black and green teas can play a crucial role in reducing the risks of degenerative diseases because of the powerful antioxidants contained in tea.
A typical brew of tea contains 0.35% tea solids in water. A group of chemical compounds known as polyphenols is a major component of 40% of the solids extracted into the brew. Polyphenols act as anti-oxidants after consumption.
Tea is considered to be liquid gold in Sri Lanka because it is such an essential crop to the country's economy. Tea contains almost zero calories and although rich in potassium, its sodium content is low. It's therefore regarded as a safe and beneficial beverage. I never knew that it also contains fluoride and therefore helps fight tooth decay.
The museum was situated in the 1925 vintage Hantane Tea Factory that had been abandoned for more than a decade. We read a sign that asked what made Ceylon tea the world's best tea. Their promotional materials attributed it to "the rich flavor, the freshness and emotional satisfaction it offers. To a tea connoisseur, it could be something, deeper and more profound. In truth, the rich flavours and freshness of Ceylon Tea speak for themselves. When the British started growing and exporting Ceylon Tea to the world, people began to savour and appreciate its taste and superior quality. This fame grew as the years went by with more and Ceylon Tea exported and enjoyed the world over."
For a nominal fee, we were given a private tour of the former factory that operated from 1925-1986 before it was converted into a museum. Our guide told us the 42-horsepower machine dated from 1867 and the Hantane Tea Factory was the first tea factory in Kandy.
When the tea is plucked, it's weighed and sent to the tea factory for processing which involves several stages. The first is withering which occurs with the leaves spread out on special racks so that air currents can flow through open windows and circulate through and around the leaves. In olden times, this used to take up to 24 hours but now withering troughs are used to spread the leaves while controlled air currents cut the time by a quarter. Every batch of tea in the withering process is dated. Green tea is withered for shorter periods of time and not fermented.
The tea was put into these chutes before being rolled for about thirty minutes to crush it into small flakes and to squeeze out the juices.
They then go to the fermenting room where the leaves are spread out on glass- or cement-topped tables in a cool, humid atmosphere. When the leaf ferments, oxidization takes place and the leaf changes color from green to a bright copper color. The tea leaves were put on the fermenting tables for anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours before the flavor is lost. Fermenting gave black teas its rich aromas.
The final steps are sorting and bulk packing with tea leaves sorted into different grades depending on the size of the leaf.
The guide explained that climate and weather affected the different types of tea. The factory was located in what was called Sri Lanka's 'mid-country' which produced certain teas; others were produced at lower and higher elevations which therefore made different-flavored teas.
An 80-year old tea bush:
The kid in me got a big kick when the guide pushed a button to activate the Mini Tea Factory and all the machines worked their magic!
After climbing up a flight of stairs we were introduced to James Taylor, no, not that James Taylor, but the Scot who is credited with being the Father of the Tea Industry in Sri Lanka! Taylor emigrated to what was then called Ceylon at the age of just 17 in 1852. Twenty-five years later, the Duke of Argyll was the first ship to carry Ceylon tea to London. After Taylor died at the age of just 57 of dysentery in 1892, he was buried in Kandy.
Some of Taylor's possessions:
The oldest packet of tea in Sri Lanka was made in 1944.
I had never heard of that James Taylor but I was well acquainted with Sir Tea, aka Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton as I only ever buy Lipton tea! Being the daughter of an Englishwoman, you can bet my beverage of choice is a hot cuppa tea which I love to drink morning, noon and night. However, I like mine very, very weak so Lipton's will never make much money out of me!
Lipton, also another Scot, was born in 1950 and opened his first grocery store at just 21 in his native city of Glasgow. He had over 300 shops in the United Kingdom, stretching from the north of Scotland to the tip of England by the time he was 40. His tea received royal approval from the British, Italian and Spanish monarchies. A committed yachtsman, Lipton competed five times unsuccessfully to wrest the America's Cup from the New York Yacht Club. He was so admired by Americans he was presented with a Loving Cup as the world's greatest loser!
When the tea arrived in his shops loose in crates, Lipton had it packed in brightly colored packets in different weights. The tea was fresher, standardized and he had his slogan "Straight from the tea gardens to the teapot."
I was surprised at the number of medals presented to the Tea Museum by foreign governments.
A typical brew of tea contains 0.35% tea solids in water. A group of chemical compounds known as polyphenols is a major component of 40% of the solids extracted into the brew. Polyphenols act as anti-oxidants after consumption.
Tea is considered to be liquid gold in Sri Lanka because it is such an essential crop to the country's economy. Tea contains almost zero calories and although rich in potassium, its sodium content is low. It's therefore regarded as a safe and beneficial beverage. I never knew that it also contains fluoride and therefore helps fight tooth decay.
We later watched a video in which I learned that in Sri Lanka, there were seven growing areas for tea up to 6,000 feet above sea level. The extreme coolness of night temperatures at that altitude gives the tea its best flavor so it's called the champagne of tea!
Tea grown from 4,000-5,000 feet is a "delicate, radiant tea" and compared to a pinot noir. A stronger tea is produced when grown from 2,000-3,000 feet; it's supposed to "have an extra dimension" and be like a shiraz wine! Low-grown teas at above 1,000 feet and below are compared to a Cabernet Sauvignon and are "round, full, muscular, almost juicy." Milk is normally needed to balance the strong flavor.
Tea plants are maintained at the chest height of pickers! Pickers must have nimble fingers to pick tea leaves and buds at the correct time of the day. The work is best done by women as men aren't that nimble, we learned!
While in Kandy we could have visited a tea plantation and therefore seen the process from that angle. We intentionally chose to tour the museum as we had reservations while in India in a few weeks' time to walk around a tea plantation. Of course, we had no realization then that our trip would be cut so short because of the coronavirus pandemic which would mean our only exposure on this trip to the world of tea would be to this tea museum. Steven and I still hope that we will return to India in the not too distant future, whether that will be this fall or next spring, and then see how tea is grown literally from the ground up. I'll be sure to write about our experience at that point!
Next post: We took an Uber tuk tuk to the Periyar Botanic Gardens that were once the private enclave for Kandyan royalty.
I am also simultaneously writing the last dozen or so blogs from the last part of our trip to Ireland, a smidge of Wales and the English countryside and then Scotland and London from last fall. Here's the link to our whistle-stop tour of the Lake District en route to Hadrian's Wall.
Posted on Good Friday, April 10th, 2020, from our home in Denver. Steven and I hope each of you has a blessed holiday even if you're unable to celebrate Passover or Easter with family and friends as usual.
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