TEA IN KANDY

WEATHER: Hot as usual and 35C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Having the afternoon free

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Getting a little too much sun…..

WORD OF THE DAY:  TEA

THANKS TO ALL MY WATER CHARITY DONATIONS SO FAR:

Jodie Ryan 

http://mycharitywater.org/bernies-odyssey-for-clean-water

BUDDHA QUOTE FOR THE DAY:

“The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.”

We only had one thing on the cards today and that was a visit to a tea factory.  Breakfast was included in our stay in Kandy and it was certainly a great spread of hot food, some curry and fruit.  I started my Lipdslow this morning with 2 teaspoons of lime peel oil in my tea.  It has a distinct flavor, but it certainly isn’t unpleasant.  I wonder if I will be saying that after 3 months?  I will need to get a small bottle that I can pack in my bag as it is a bit cumbersome bringing the full liter with me to breakfast.  We left the hotel at 8am for the 30 minute drive to the factory we were going to get a walk around. 

When Coffee was King.  Strange as it may seem, the story of Ceylon Tea begins with coffee. The tale begins in the early 1820s, barely five years after the surrender of Kandy, the last surviving indigenously-ruled state in Ceylon, to the British crown.  By then, the rest of the island had already been a British colony for more than a generation. Its possession was considered vital to imperial interests in India and the Far East, but the cost of maintaining the military presence and infrastructure necessary to secure it was prohibitive. Attempts to raise revenue by taxation could not by themselves fill the gap; how to make the colony pay for itself and its garrison was a problem that had troubled successive governors since the first, Frederic North, took office in 1798.  Experiments with coffee may already have begun by 1824, when the fifth of Ceylon’s colonial governors, Edward Barnes, arrived in the island, but it was he who first saw in coffee a solution to the colony’s perennial balance-of-payments problem. The plant had already been found growing naturally among the approaches to the central hill country; sensing an opportunity, 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 thence to market in England.

Barnes’ term of office ended in 1831. By then the coffee ‘enterprise’ (today we would call it an industry) occupied much of the country round Kandy and was spreading southward and upward into the formerly virgin forests of the central hills. Then, in 1838, the abolition of slavery in Jamaica caused the collapse of that country’s coffee industry. The resulting boom in Ceylon coffee opened up much that remained of the hitherto trackless hill country.  Despite setbacks in the late 1840s, the enterprise continued to grow. In the mid-1870s Ceylon became the world’s largest producer of coffee. Profits and revenues generated by the enterprise turned the colony into an imperial showpiece, prosperous, civilized and modern. Railways threaded the coffee-clad hillsides, roads plumbed the interior; the city of Colombo was gas-lit and its port had been developed with a breakwater and new quays. An effective government and civil administration kept things functioning smoothly, although the people of Ceylon had little say in either institution.  This idyll was to be short-lived. In 1869, the first signs of a new plant disease, coffee-rust, appeared on a plantation in Madulsima. The blight took slightly more than a decade to wipe out the entire coffee enterprise in Ceylon.

Giragama Tea Factory was established in 1903 and manufactures Low Grown and Long Leaf tea. Grading names which are used in Sri Lanka to classify its teas are not by any means the indication of its quality but indicate its size and appearance. Mainly there are two categories. They are "Leaf grades" and "Smaller broken grades". Leaf grades refers to the size and appearance of the teas that were produced during Sri Lanka's colonial era (which are still being used) and the other refers to the modern tea style and appearance.  We met our guide and started the 30 minute tour.  Sri Lanka’s tea cultivators and manufacturers are the custodians of the traditional, orthodox method of black tea production. This is still agreed by most experts to produce the best black tea. Even with the technological improvements introduced over the last thirty or forty years, the orthodox method is relatively slow and labor-intensive; but as the tea planters and traders of Sri Lanka have always maintained, good tea cannot be hurried and it takes a few steps to get to that final cuppa tea that you drink each morning.  Weighing.  On arrival at the factory, the raw leaf is weighed. The total weight recorded for the day’s batch provides a benchmark for quality assessment at the end of the process of manufacture. After weighing, the tea is laid out for withering.  Withering.  Raw leaf is ‘fluffed’ and spread out to dry on racks or troughs in a well-lit and ventilated space. It will lie here for 18-24 hours, slowly losing moisture and undergoing physical and chemical changes essential to manufacture. Over-withering can be fatal, so the process is carefully monitored. It is complete when about two-thirds of the moisture present in the raw leaf has evaporated.  Rolling.  The withered leaf is now ready for rolling. This is a mechanized process in which the leaf cells are ruptured to release enzymes and bring them into contact with air so that aeration can commence. The bits of broken and rolled leaf are called dhools. The dhools are then broken up and sifted before aeration.  Aeration.  During this critical stage of manufacture, important chemical reactions take place through the action of air on the leaf tissue. The rolled, broken leaf is spread out on tables and exposed for a period that varies between 20 minutes and five hours, depending on a variety of factors, including what kind of final product is desired. The withered tea leaf is a rusty, coppery orange colour. Again, timing is critical: under-aerated tea tastes raw and green, over-aerated tea is soft and tasteless. Aeration is also sometimes known as ‘fermentation’ or ‘oxidation’.  Drying.  When the right amount of aeration has occurred, the leaf is dried in a dessicator or ‘firing chamber’ at 99-104˚C to prevent further chemical changes. This shrinks and darkens the leaf, resulting in the product known as black tea. This completes the actual manufacture.  Grading.  The size of the leaf particles in your teapot bears no relation to quality per se, but it does affect the colour and strength of the brew. Manufactured tea is graded by leaf size using a mechanical sifter. ‘Leaf’ grades contain the largest pieces; ‘broken’ grades are successively smaller, while the smallest grades of all are known as ‘dust’. Larger grades tend to command higher auction prices.  It is then finally packed up for sale at auction in Colombo.  

There are 3 types of tea that are grown.  Ceylon black tea is one of the country's specialties. It has a crisp aroma reminiscent of citrus, and is used both unmixed and in blends. It is grown on numerous estates which vary in altitude and taste.  Ceylon green tea is mainly made from Assamese tea stock. It is grown in Idalgashinna in Uva Province. Ceylon green teas generally have the fuller body and the more pungent, rather malty, nutty flavor characteristic of the teas originating from Assamese seed stock. Overall, the green teas from Sri Lanka have their own characteristics at this time - they tend to be darker in both the dry and infused leaf, and their flavor is richer; this could change in the future. As market demand preferences change, the Ceylon green tea producers start using more of the original Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Brazilian seed base, which produces the very light and sparkling bright yellow colour and more delicate, sweet flavor with which most of the world market associates green teas. At this time, Sri Lanka remains a very minor producer of green teas and its green teas, like those of India and Kenya, remain an acquired taste. Much of the green tea produced in Sri Lanka is exported to North Africa and Middle Eastern markets.  Ceylon white tea, also known as "silver tips" is highly prized, and prices per kilogram are significantly higher than other teas. The tea was first grown at Nuwara Eliya near Adam's Peak between 2,200–2,500 meters. The tea is grown, harvested and rolled by hand with the leaves dried and withered in the sun. It has a delicate, very light liquoring with notes of pine & honey and a golden coppery infusion. 'Virgin White Tea' is also grown at the Handunugoda Tea Estate near Galle in the south of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka retained its position as the world's top tea exporter by selling a record 294 million kilograms in 2001 compared to 288 million kilograms in 2000.  World tea production in 2001 rose 3.7% to 3.022 million tonnes, but in Sri Lanka tea exports rose to an all-time high of $658 million from $595 million the previous year.  Currently, however, Sri Lanka, whilst the world's largest exporter of tea, is far behind India and China in terms of total production.  The most important foreign markets for Sri Lankan tea are the former Soviet bloc countries of the CIS, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UK, Egypt, Libya and Japan.   After the tour we got to sit in their small tea ‘café’ and sample a cup of tea before heading back into town.  One van was taking people to the Botanical Gardens and the other van was to go back to the hotel via town for a drop off. 

On our way back to town Suzi Q asked about getting a chance to try on a saree and Indika asked if we all wanted to try one on.  I asked the obvious question on whether they would have a size big enough for me and the answer was a definite yes, so I said why not and we stopped at a shop that specialized in sarees.  Sri Lankan women wear saris in many styles. Two ways of draping the sari are popular and tend to dominate: the Indian style (classic nivi drape) and the Kandyan style (or osaria in Sinhalese). The Kandyan style is generally more popular in the hill country region of Kandy from which the style gets its name. Though local preferences play a role, most women decide on style depending on personal preference or what is perceived to be most flattering for their figure.  The traditional Kandyan (osaria) style consists of a full blouse which covers the midriff completely and is partially tucked in at the front.  However, modern intermingling of styles has led to most wearers baring the midriff. The final tail of the sari is neatly pleated rather than free-flowing. The Kandyan style is considered the national dress of Sinhalese women and it is the uniform of the air hostesses of SriLankan Airlines.

The shop looks like they are used to tourists coming in and doing the ‘try’ on thing.  We were basically shown 4 bookshelves full of material and we could pick whatever colour we wanted.  It was a bevy of colour and as all the material was 6m in length you could pick whatever you wanted.  Finally maybe the saying ‘one size fits all’ applies in the world of saree wearing.  We were soon to find out.  I picked a burgundy length of material and my saree gal came back with a bright pink stretchy blouse that goes underneath the actual saree.  If I had of known that was the colour that she was picking I would have picked a different colour material as I would never wear right pink and burgundy together but I didn’t want to push my luck in regards to size as maybe that was the biggest blouse they had.  There were other tourists in the shop and once they had their stretchy blouse on they came out of the change rooms with the crop top on and then they get wound into the saree, yeah well that wasn’t going to happen with me and I asked my saree gal if we could do it all in the change room.  Once I had on the stretch crop (she looked surprised), she came back in and then started to fold me into the saree.  Originally there were around 8 folds at the front but for it to fit me we had to take out 3 folds, but it fitted and it actually didn’t look too bad, it was a shame on the combination of colours, but hey beggars couldn’t be choosers.  Suzi Q, Mel and Reggie all looked amazing in their saree’s and after a few photo opportunities and a bit of a sell from our saree gals Mel was talked into buying one, but she looked great in her emerald green one and got it for a grand total of 76AUD.

So we were back at the hotel at 12 noon and Mel, Reggie and I were down at the pool at 12.30pm.  This was the coldest pool we had swim in so far, but the sun was so hot it actually felt refreshing.  I like to float around in the pool reading my book, so as it worked out I did that for 2 hours before we got hungry and I probably needed to get out of the sun anyway and we headed into the restaurant for lunch.  There really is an amazing view from the restaurant and after lunch the gals went back to the pool and I decided I better get some blog writing done and sat there, with a coke by my side and a magnificent view to get some inspiration from.  I needed this day off, especially with the next 3 days coming up, which is the last of my stress-out of the itinerary, the walk in the tea plantations. 

We had a Cultural Dance to attend tonight and we met at the hotel reception at 5pm.  We didn’t have to travel too far, just down the hill actually and when we got to the hall, thanks to Indika, we had 6 seats in the front row and 6 seats in the second row.  Indika told us to not dilly dally at the end of the show as they have firewalkers outside afterwards and he wanted us to get a good spot for that, so with that in mind we settled in, a drink guy came around selling water and soft drinks (I bought a water) and then the show started right at 5.30pm.  There were 10 dances in total for the performance which sounds a lot, but they kept them interesting and not too long and the costumes were just beautiful.  We got to the 4^th dance and unfortunately the power went out and we couldn’t see what was happening on stage.  The poor dancers didn’t know what to do, but to their credit they kept on dancing for a further 5 minutes and then realized we couldn’t see shit and the drummers just kept on playing till 2 lanterns materialized and were popped on stage so that the show could go on, and surprisingly enough they gave off enough light, well they did for us up the front, I am not so sure for the people down the back.      

The Kandyan Dance is a dance form that originated in the area called Kandy of the Central hills region in Sri Lanka. But today it has been widespread to other parts of the country.  According to the legend, the origins of the dance lie in an exorcism ritual known as the Kohomba Kankariya, which was originally performed by Indian shamans who came to the island.  According to legend, the Indian shamans came to the island upon the request of a king who was suffering from a mysterious illness. The king was said to be suffering from a recurring dream in which a leopard was directing its tongue towards the king, believed to be as a black magic of "Kuweni" the first wife of the king "Vijaya". After the performance of the Kohomba Kankariya the illness vanished, and many natives adopted the dance.  The dance waned in popularity as the support for the dancers from the Kandyan Kings ended during the British period. It has now been revived and adapted for the stage, and is Sri Lanka's primary cultural export.  The dancers wear elaborate costumes including a headdress and jewelry. The Kandyan Dance is traditionally performed to percussion only. The most common drum is the Geta Beraya, which is only used in Kandyan Dance. To assist the dancer to keep rhythm a small pair of cymbals known as the Thalampota is also used.  The show went for about an hour-the power came back on during the last dance and at the end they all came back on stage so that we could get a group photo of them all together and as we made for the exit, the heavens opened up and it started to rain quite heavily.  Well I guess the firewalker wasn’t going to get his gig done-talk about an unlucky night for the performers.  They had to of the ladies from the show standing at the door with tip boxes and there was a man selling some souvenirs in the back corner.  I bet he loves it when it rains and people hang around and look at his stuff and buy things they don’t need.  I did buy something, but I needed it and it was a Buddha flag and some stickers for my diary.  Well the rain didn’t really pitter out, so we made the decision to just catch tuk tuk’s back to the hotel and have the buffet dinner that they were offering.  It was only early after dinner, 7.30pm, so I decided to sit away from the group and get one blog completed and loaded.  I got it finished at 9.30pm and then the internet was turned off!!!  Blast and blast!  I have found that with all the hotels that have Wi-Fi, they switch it on after we arrive and around 10-11pm at night they switch it off.  I am not sure what difference it makes to just leave it on but that is how they roll over here.  I will just make sure I get up early in the morning and to get it on the net. 

So that was my relaxing day in Kandy and a few people from the group mentioned I looked a lot more relaxed, but I did have my hair down for the first time on the whole trip, so that could have had something to do with it.  Tomorrow we are on a train travelling through the tea plantations and heading up in elevation, so I am looking forward to getting into some cooler weather.