Ceylon Tea History - Chapter 01

Sri Lanka was formerly a British colony known as Ceylon, a name it kept for nearly a quarter-century after independence. It was during the British era that tea first began to be cultivated and manufactured here.The story of Ceylon Tea begins with coffee. The coffee plant had already been found growing naturally among the approaches to the central hill country. Then British Governor Barnes threw the weight of official support behind large-scale cultivation. Land in the central hills was sold for a few pence an acre, official funds were dedicated to research and experiments in coffee-growing, planters and merchants were provided with incentives and support. Most important of all, Barnes provided the infrastructure – a network of roads, including the all-important trunk route from Kandy to Colombo – that enabled coffee-planters to get their produce to town, and then to market in England. In the 1870s, coffee plantations were devastated by a fungal disease called Hemileia vastatrix or coffee rust, better known as "coffee leaf disease" or "coffee blight”. The death of the coffee industry marked the end of an era when most of the plantations on the island were dedicated to producing coffee beans. Planters experimented with cocoa and cinchona as alternative crops but failed due to an infestation of Heloplice antonie, so that in the 1870s virtually all the remaining coffee planters in Ceylon switched to the production and cultivation of tea.

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KENYAN TEA MANUFACTURING PROCESS

👉Black Tea manufacture: Withering: The objective of withering is to reduce the moisture in the t ealeaf by up to 70% (varies from region to region). Tea is laid out on a wire mesh in troughs. Air is then passed through the tea removing the moisture in a uniform way. This process takes around 12 to 17 hours. At the end of this time the leaf is limp and pliable and so will roll well. Rolling: Tea is placed into a rolling machine, which rotates horizontally on the rolling table. This action creates the twisted wiry looking tealeaves. During the rolling process the leaves are also broken open, which starts the third process - oxidisation. Oxidisation: Once rolling is complete, the tea is either put into troughs or laid out on tables whereby the enzymes inside the tealeaf come in to contact with the air and start to oxidise. This creates the flavour, colour and strength of the tea. It is during this process that the tealeaf changes from green, through light ...

TEA TASTING - Chapter 01

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KENYAN PURPLE TEA💜🍃☕

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