Black tea has been the most consumed & healthiest of the premier beverages including Black Coffee. All right stuff come with a cost & Black tea hasn’t been an exception. Popularity of Black tea in British Empire had the Chinese hooked onto narcotic opium till Black tea from India & Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) took over the European market from China. Though China had its opium addiction reversed, in the case of Sri Lanka, the ancient Sinhalese irrigation network in the north central plains was long neglected in view of the the Black tea cultivation in the Central higlands. Ancient Sinhalese of Sri Lanka, from the very beginning of their civilization had practiced sustainable agriculture with a view of United Biology: the deep human need to be surrounded by other living things. The world’s oldest protected & recorded tree is in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka; the World’s first ever wildlife reserve is Mihintale, Sri Lanka; the world first veterinary hospital was in Anuradhapura by King Buddhadasa (AD 340-368) of Sri Lanka, who himself was an illustrious Ayurvedic Physician & veterinary surgeon in ancient Sri Lanka. Ancient Sinhalese record of live & let live policy towards all living beings has been unparalleled throughout its 2552 years of unbroken recorded history as chronicled in Mahawama. Such was the Sinhalese history & tradition shattered by the colonialists in Ceylon.
Black tea & indentured labor from South India by the British colonialists in Ceylon
Moreover, Black tea being an all year crop, the indentured South Indian labor brought into Ceylon for the purpose of Black tea cultivation was to create untold disturbances in the ancient island of the Sinhalese, albeit short of the devastating scale wreaked upon the island nation by Malabars brought into Jaffna peninsula for the cultivation of Tobacco by the Dutch (1685-1798). The induction of Dravidian coolies into Sri Lanka of Sinhalese by the Dutch firstly, the British secondly, was to disturb the demography & social fabric of the ancient island to unfathomable depths. Europeans enjoyed tobacco & the finest Black tea in the world. The little tropical island of Sri Lanka paid a heavy price.

Black Coffee from Ceylon
It was with Coffee that the high yield plantation industry of Sri Lanka (forced change-over from subsistence crops to commercial crops) began in the year 1825. By 1867, acreage under coffee rose to 162,700. The Central highlands of Sri Lanka being ideal for coffee growing, at the peak of the Black coffee industry, the highest annual production exceeded 50 million kg of highest quality Black coffee.

No shade, no protection: failed mono culture
The British having set up plantations of mono culture coffee without shade, the conditions resulted in the emergence of a devastating leaf disease known as the “coffee rust” Hemileia vastatrix, in the year 1869. During the next twenty years, in spite of a frantic effort to arrest the spread of decease, the Black Coffee industry declined. The lionhearted planters of Ceylon wouldn’t be denied by the calamitous misfortune. In an attempt to avoid financial ruin, the planters converted their decimated acreage of Black coffee to Black tea: millions of infected bushes were uprooted & set fire with untold heartache. With awesome courage Black tea was planted in every inch of what were once hills of Black coffee. Black tea of Ceylon took root: Ceylon tea. Today, Sri Lanka is the producer of finest Black tea in the world. Coffee production in Sri Lanka today is a low-key industry geared solely for the purpose of local consumption.

Snowballing Folly of US AID & World Bank
In traditional wisdom, Coffee is grown in the shade under protection of forest canopy. In the 1950s USAID & World Bank launched a project in under-developed countries to promote so called sun-grown coffee. In order to secure bank credit, the planters were required to cut down the trees & switch over from their traditional shade grown coffee to modern sun grown coffee. It was to turn into a major folly.

The shade trees were cut down depriving the birds their habitat. Loss of bird population caused the spread of worms: infestation of worms called for pesticides. Then again the plants stressed by the exposure to direct sun & sprays of pesticide, in turn required chemical fertilizers. Moreover direct sun resulting in increased weed growth necessitated the use of weed killers. At last, but not least, with coffee berries getting ripened quicker in the direct sun, the quality of coffee was called into question.
Then again the farmers without the know-how of using chemicals safely were exposed to vapors & fumes resulting in health complications; groundwater began to be contaminated; the pulp of the coffee berries, which constitutes about 60% by weight, thrown into the rivers deduced the pH wreaking havoc on the marine life. Next to Tobacco, Coffee is the most chemical intensive crop consumed by the humans.

Once again Ceylon Coffee in Sri Lanka: developing poly culture
In Poly Culture, farmers provide shade for the coffee plantation with particular tree and plant species, including fruit and vegetables for the farmer as well as for the market. At present, it is estimated that there are over 3000 farmers of shade-grown Coffee in Sri Lanka. Spurning pesticides & chemical fertilizers, Lawrence Goldberg of Sri Lanka’s Hansa Coffee has been engaged in the industry of Ceylon coffee regain the reputation for quality won and lost nearly a century & half ago. The concept herein is termed Analog Forest Garden.

Quote Hansa Coffee of Sri Lanka
An Analog Forest Garden is a tree dominated environment established on the principals of Analog Forestry, where crop plants are grown so that they form a physical structure to the original forest. This planting exhibits ecological relations that are also analogous to those of the original forest and provides micro-habitat to many species that could not exist without it. Unquote

Live & let live: co-exist with other living beings; go with the concept of United Biology. That is to go with the God.