Preserving the past

Dilmah’s Digital Tea History Website

It is imperative for the future of this industry that we shall not forget the past and those that made history in creating our tea industry. Dilhan C Fernando

In 2003, inspired by his family’s desire to share, Dilhan C Fernando decided to set up a new website telling the story of “The History of Ceylon tea”. He describes it as a tribute to all the courageous men who dedicated their lives to creating a great industry in harsh and hostile conditions, who strove fearlessly and with great determination to establish plantations on land where tea had never grown before. But much of their history was never systematically archived and the history website aims to preserve the records and papers that document their work. Dilmah is partnering the Planters’ Association of Sri Lanka to digitally archive all the materials and save them for future generations. Ancient and often unique publications and papers have been collected, indexed, repaired and properly stored and where copyright is thought to have lapsed, information has been made more widely available through the dedicated web pages. So web users can browse through early descriptions of how the plants were laid out and cared for, read the minutes of meetings of various tea associations, view old tea photographs, search through statistics from the 19th century and study more recent articles about Sri Lanka’s tea industry. The site attracts considerable interest, particularly from former planters and tea writers, and the material provides an invaluable source of information for tea historians, students and researchers.

The website now has more than 100,000 pages of literature that tell the tea story, a photo album and a ‘Planters Register’ that acts as a database allowing planters to record their planting experiences. The Forum Message Board enables former planters to keep in