Author’s Note
198 Words
Author’s NoteI visited Sri Lanka in 1975 and was thrilled with the exquisite almost unbelievable beauty of the country, the charm and friendliness of its people and I was fascinated by its history.
The background of this book is all authentic and the success of Ceylon tea after the failure of coffee was immortalised by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when he wrote,
“Not often is it that men have the heart, when their one great industry is withered, to rear up in a few years another as rich to take its place and the tea fields of Ceylon are as true a monument to courage as is the lion at Waterloo.”
James Taylor was not only the first man on the island to grow tea commercially but he also manufactured and sold it. His enterprise as an attempt to retrieve the tragedy of coffee, which ruined thousands of people, became a sparkle of hope in Ceylon’s economy. When he died his labourers called him Sami Durai, ‘the Master who is God’.
In 1873 the export of tea from Sri Lanka was just twenty-eight pounds in weight and one hundred years later it was more than four hundred and forty-five million pounds in weight.
- Writer
