Pure Ceylon Tea – known globally as the best tea in the world and acknowledged for it's distinct taste and flavour, had indeed humble beginnings.

•	THE DATE: 1867, the year it all started.
•	THE PLACE: Loolecondera Estate, close to Kandy.
•	THE PERSON: James Taylor, a young Scotsman.
•	THE SEEDLING: Camellia sinensis - a.k.a - TEA

Ceylon grew no tea until when James Taylor planted tea seedlings on vast forestlands, which had been originally cleared for a Coffee plantation. Taylor’s instincts proved right as a few years later Ceylon’s leading industry - Coffee, was wiped out by a fungal disease.

Taylor set up the first tea “Factory” on the island; it was in his bungalow at Loolecondera Estate, Kandy. The leaf was rolled on tables on the verandah by hand while the firing was done in chulas or clay stoves over charcoal fires, with wire trays to hold the leaf. The result was a delicious tea, which was sold locally at Rs 1.50 per lb.

In 1872, Taylor invented a machine for rolling leaves, trained a number of people to properly process tea, and one year later sent twenty-three pounds of tea to London, and from that point on Ceylon tea arrived regularly in Europe, London and Melbourne.

Taylor continued to develop new methods to process tea until his death in 1892 at the age of fifty-seven.

This changed the islands landscape forever, laying the groundwork for today’s achievements in tea exports.