Colonization and the Tea Sector in Sri Lanka

        Under British colonial rule, Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon, making the name for Ceylon tea produced in the region. British colonizers brought the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, from China to Sri Lanka in 1824 as an experiment. In 1867, James Taylor started the first tea plantation in Ceylon, jumpstarting the tea industry in Sri Lanka for centuries to come. Following the decimation of the already flourishing coffee plantations from a fungal disease in the 1870s, colonialists turned to Taylor’s first plantation and began expanding it. By 1899, there were nearly 400,00 acres dedicated to tea cultivation in Sri Lanka.^[1] Replacing coffee plantations with tea required a great deal of work, and colonial plantation owners recruited low caste workers, often Tamils from South India, to work on the new tea plantations.^[2] The majority of the tea labor force in Sri Lanka today is still Tamil migrant labor, approximately 80%.^[3] Profit was prioritized by the British above all else, which incentivized paying their workers the lowest amount possible. Using migrant labor kept the workers vulnerable, tied to their jobs under exploitative conditions that echoed slave plantations in other British colonies.^[4] The power dynamic between the British as colonialists and countries across South Asia as the colonized affected every aspect of life for tea workers. This in turn reflects the continued global dynamic between the global North and global South, where headquarters live in the global North dictating what happens in the global South, where all virtually production occurs.

        Sri Lanka first gained independence in 1948 as the Dominion of Ceylon, a dominion of the British Commonwealth. As the Dominion of Ceylon, the government enacted the Ceylon Citizenship Act to outline citizenship criteria, which completely disqualified Indian Tamil plantation workers from ever becoming citizens. In 1949 the Ceylon Amendment Act compounded this discrimination by restricting voting rights to citizens only, disenfranchising the Indian Tamil population in Sri Lanka.^[5] When Ceylon gained full independence in 1972, they changed the country name to Sri Lanka. Coming into this new independence with a new name signified moving away from British rule and becoming their own country. However, Sri Lanka’s successful tea industry that was started by the British still produced a great profit and comprised a large majority of their exports, all under the name of Ceylon tea. After some debate, the government chose to keep the name Ceylon tea, rather than change to Sri Lanka tea out of fear that it would cause confusion and a decrease in profits. Sri Lanka uses 40% of its land for agriculture, with 28% of that dedicated to tea cultivation.^[6] Given how tea is such an important export for Sri Lanka, it is no surprise that the government prioritized the tea industry’s continued success..^[7] 

        Tensions between the Tamil minority and Singhalese majority came to a head in 1983 with a civil war that continued until 2009. The government sought to tamp down the insurrection from the separatist Tamil minority as Sinhalese militancy formed mobs that attacked Tamils, forcing them to move from Sri Lanka to Tamil Nadu. India and Sri Lanka signed an accord in 1986, providing Tamils with an autonomous but integrated province within Sri Lanka. However, disagreements over the accord led to a resurgence in violence. After a series of changes in power and assassinations, finally the violence came to an end in 2009 when the government took all the strongholds from LTTE, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers. This decades long conflict led to constant suspicion and prejudice towards Tamils in Sri Lanka that endure to this day. Even following the Grant of Citizenship to Stateless Persons Act in 1986 which granted citizenship to Indian Tamils, the stereotypes spread as a result of the civil war and their history of victimization places Indian Tamils in a powerless position on tea plantations.^[8] 

Consumption or Tourism

        As of 2024, Sri Lanka is one of the top four producing countries for tea^[9]. However, according to Dharmathilake et al., Sri Lanka was not performing as well in the global tea market in 2021. Their research focuses on how to improve the success of the tea industry, turning to two main ideas: increase local consumption and capitalize on foreigners who come as ambassadors for Ceylon Tea.^[10] Dharmathilake et al. chose to focus on evaluating current local tea consumption habits to understand how to expand that market. Income levels and the locations of consumers affects what tea they buy, where they buy their tea, and specifically the brand they buy. High income consumers are more conscious about the brand and purchase more from supermarkets. The researchers recommend increasing brand recognition and marketing in supermarkets. As far as low income tea consumers, the researchers suggest reducing production costs to reduce retail costs so it is accessible for lower income consumers. An unfortunately commonly systemic issue across the food system is that the laborers who work to produce the food item cannot afford it themselves. Although reducing the cost of production would then make tea more affordable for all socioeconomic classes, this money would need to come from somewhere else. The likelihood that labor costs would be reduced is high, leaving laborers with even smaller wages or without a job. Simply stating the answer as reducing production costs leaves out the many factors, especially the people’s livelihoods that depend on tea production.

        Fernando et al. explored how Sri Lanka uses the tea sector to attract tourists in 2017.^[11] Looking at the tea sector as a potential form of niche tourism in line with sustainable and eco-friendly tourism, Fernando et al. interviewed 173 tea tourists to learn their attitudes, expectations, and destination wants. 59% of their respondents were Western tourists.

They discovered that 73% of their respondents had never visited any tea tourism region in the world. However, they had moderate familiarity with Ceylon Tea and expressed interest in tea tourism day trips. The researchers recommended creating an information base for tourists, expanding an international marketing plan for Ceylon Tea, offering tea activities such as plucking leaves or tastings, and building the image of Sri Lanka as a tourist destination. Developing the tea sector further would bring a tourist economy to Sri Lanka and support the local economy.

However, sensationalizing the work of tea laborers with activities like tea plucking for tourists ignores the difficult life of a tea plantation worker, and turns their lives into a spectacle. Creating tea tourism in Sri Lanka would require diligent work from policy experts, tea workers, tea estate owners, and the local communities to understand if the benefit of economic growth from tea tourism would outweigh the potential costs and drawbacks. This optimistic call for stakeholders to evaluate tea tourism goes against this article by Fernando et al. and the fact that tea tourism has spread across Sri Lanka. A quick Google search shows a myriad of options for tea tours in Sri Lanka, guided or unguided, and many reasons why to visit these lush, green plantations. This clear evidence of tea tourism in Sri Lanka couples with the photos from this archive of women tea plantation workers in Sri Lanka. As stated previously in the Addressing the Photos section, the photographer's motivations and reasons for being on those plantations is unknown. Potentially, the photographers were there as tourists, but we cannot know.