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by Theja Vidyarupa, Akuressa group correspondent

It is not known when exactly the first cup of tea was brewed although tea has been used as a beverage for over 5,000 years according to some historians. The origin of the habit of drinking tea has been lost in antiquity.

There seems to be several legends with regard to the discovery of tea in a country which has the world's longest civilisation.

According to one such legend, teas had been discovered as a result of a few leaves from a jungle tree falling into a pot of water held by a person meditating under a tree.

The meditator having consumed the water containing the extracts from the leaves which had fallen into his pot of water by chance had found that the drink refreshed him with vigour. Later he had continued to drink water with the same extracts from the same leaves as a habit and observed that the boiled water with leaf refreshed him further. This incident had taken place in China in 2727 BC during the reign of Emperor Shen Nang. Accidental discovery

This story of the accidental discovery soon spread among the neighbours and the new beverage came to be known as "Tea". The plant which produced this drink is botanically known as "Camillia Sinensis".

The tea drinking habit has been referred to in Chinese mythology at the time of Emperor Shen Nung and thereafter in 593 AD in Japanese Literature. In the ancient Chinese Dictionary 'Erh Ya' in the year 350 AD tea drinking has been described, with the passage of time, people who plucked leaves from this tree discovered various methods of processing them to be used whenever they desired.

The leaves collected were exposed to the wind overnight and in the morning rolled the same under the palm and put out for sun drying which helped them to keep the produce for some time. Later people started making hand made machinery such as wooden hammers and stone grinders to smash the leaves where it became a cottage industry in China.

Popular drink

Tea as a drink was becoming popular and it found its way to Japan, Assam and nearby countries around 800 AD. Reports of tea reached the Arabs and a book on tea was written by the Japanese in 1200 AD. Merchants from Venice came to know about tea and samples were taken to Italy. Europeans, mainly Englishmen, Russians, Portuguese and Dutch too were keen to know about tea.

In 1658 AD the first news item appeared in a London newspaper called Mercuris Politicus. Dutchmen began to consume tea mixed with milk and the East Indians were selling tea to European countries from the hill country in Assam. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 was the forerunner of the American Revolution of Independence in 1775-1781.

In the first quarter of the 19th century, indigenous tea was discovered in Upper Assam between 1824-1839 and tea seeds brought from China and Assam were planted in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Peradeniya. This was the beginning of the development of a major tea industry in this country started with the destruction of a coffee plantations by the Coffee Rust Disease.

The first tea plantation came into bearing by 1867 at Loolkandura Estate, Uda Hewaheta, originated by James Taylor. By 1880 Ceylon started exporting tea under the colonial regime and by the end of the 19th century the cultivated tea area increased to 300,000 acres. By this time tea was grown in African countries as well.

Largest exporter

In 1905 India had become the largest exporter of tea to the world. With the establishment of the Teis Research Institute of Ceylon in 1925, where extensive research work was undertaken within the next 40 years Ceylon became the world's biggest exporter of tea.

The achievement was mostly possible due to the successful development of clonal tea in the 1950s. Vegetatively propagated tea plants and cuttings were available for planting on a large scale from 1955. No other plantation crop is grown so extensively from cuttings as tea. The yield potential of clonal tea was very impressive compared to the crop from seedling tea.

'Cleanest in the world'

At an International Scientific Standards Conference, Sri Lanka's Tea was described to be "the cleanest in the world" as far as pesticide residues are concerned. Our scientists and cost conscious growers did not want to use hazardous agro-chemicals in tea fields.

Our tea could be consumed by any person as a safe and healthy beverage at an affordable price. Plain tea drinking does not fill our stomach as food does, and therefore can be consumed between meals. Tea can be enjoyed in an atmosphere of leisure and friendship.

De Quincey said that tea "will always be the favourite beverage of the intellectual" but the Chinese seem to go further and associate it with the high minded recluse. It is the cup that cheers but never inebriates.

A wall fresco displayed at Halwitigala depicts the historical story of tea which has been designed by P. Wickremasekara, Superintendent, Halwitigala Tea factory of the Tea Smallholder Factories Limited.

The tea smallholders and interested persons around the area visit Halwitigala to see this artefact which is the only one of its kind in Sri Lanka.

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