Black Tea History
Cinnamon was the first crop to receive government sponsorship in Ceylon, while the island was under Dutch control. During the administration of Dutch governor Iman Willem Falck, cinnamon plantations were established in Colombo, Maradana, and Cinnamon Gardens in 1769. The first British governor Frederick North prohibited private cinnamon plantations, thereby securing a monopoly on cinnamon plantations for the East India Company. However, an economic slump in the 1830s in England and elsewhere in Europe affected the cinnamon plantations in Ceylon. This resulted in them being decommissioned by William Colebrooke in 1833. Finding cinnamon unprofitable, the British turned to coffee. Hemileia vastatrix or “coffee rust” which brought the downfall of coffee production and transition to the black tea industry By1825 the Ceylonese already had a knowledge of coffee. 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.
Foundation of Black tea plantations
In 1824 a black tea plant was brought to Ceylon by the British from China and was planted in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Peradeniya for non-commercial purposes. Further experimental tea plants were brought from Assam and Calcutta in India to Peradeniya in 1839 through the East India Company and over the years that followed. In 1839 the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce was established followed by the Planters’ Association of Ceylon in 1854. In 1867, James Taylor marked the birth of the tea industry in Ceylon by starting a tea plantation in the Loolecondera estate in Kandy in 1867. He was only 17 when he came to Loolkandura, Sri Lanka. The original tea plantation was just 19 acres (76,890 m2). In 1872 Taylor began operating a fully equipped tea factory on the grounds of the Loolkandura estate and that year the first sale of Loolecondra tea (Loolkandura) was made in Kandy. In 1873, the first shipment of Ceylon black tea, a consignment of some 23 lb (10 kg), arrived in London. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle remarked on the establishment of the black tea plantations, “…the tea fields of Ceylon are as true a monument to courage as is the lion at Waterloo”.
Soon enough plantations surrounding Loolkandura, including Hope, Rookwood and Mooloya to the east and Le Vallon and Stellenberg to the south, began switching over to tea and were among the first tea estates to be established on the island.
红茶历史
肉桂是第一批获得锡兰政府支持的作物，而该岛则受荷兰人控制。在荷兰州长 Iman Willem
Falck的治理期间，1769年在可伦坡，Maradana和Cinnamon Gardens建立了肉桂种植园。第一位英国州长 Frederick North
禁止私人肉桂种植园，从而确保了对东印度公司肉桂种植园的垄断。然而，1830年代英格兰和欧洲其他地区的经济衰退影响了锡兰的肉桂种植园。这导致在1833年被威廉·科布鲁克（William
Colebrooke）退役。发现肉桂无利可图，英国人转向种植咖啡。
Hemileia vastatrix或“咖啡生锈”带来了咖啡生产的垮台和向红茶产业的过渡到1825年，锡兰人已经了解了咖啡。在19世纪70年代，咖啡种植园被称为Hemileia
vastatrix或咖啡锈病的真菌疾病破坏，更好地称为“咖啡叶病”或“咖啡枯萎病”。咖啡业的死亡标志着岛上大部分种植园都致力于生产咖啡豆的时代已经结束。种植者尝试用可可和金鸡纳树作为替代作物，但由于Heloplice
antonie的侵染而失败，因此在19世纪70年代，几乎所有锡兰剩余的咖啡种植者都转而生产和种植茶叶。