Sri Lanka Hotel Guide

Tea & emergence of Samurai
The gradual emergence of a new warrior class “Samurai” (8th-19th century) indoctrinated in the concepts of absolute commitment of loyalty unto death to their lords, single minded discipline & superior physical courage bordering madness put forth by the newly emerging ideology of “Bushido” began to shatter the social fabric & imperial reign of Japan during the 11th and 12th centuries. With the deep seated belief that the increasing turmoil in Japan could be calmed by a spiritual renewal (as we believe today, that the end to violence borne of ignorance could be achieved by means of education & rehabilitation), Japanese Buddhist priest Myoan Eisai (1141- 1215) spent his life promoting Zen Buddhism and the secular use of tea as a Buddhist ritual, as well as an elixir capable of curing many ills and even extending life. Many Buddhist monks closed ranks with Eisai in a crusade to bring the spirit of Zen Buddhism and the virtues of tea to the masses.

Tea, a medium of spiritual enlightenment
Eisai’s unflagging devotion to studying the virtues & merits of tea led him to inscribe the first treatise on tea in Japan, a two-volume treatise entitled Kissa Yojo Ki (Preservation of Health Through Drinking Tea) in the year 1211. His outstanding promotion of the ritualistic preparation of tea was essentially the genesis of Cha-no-yu in Japan.
Eisai’s propagation of tea was to meet with glorious success. It even produced a result that wasn’t originally intended: his followers began to view the habit of consuming tea as an alternative means of spiritual enlightenment. It would, however, be another two centuries before an official Japanese Tea Ceremonywould be formalized with a deep sense of aesthetics & the concept of humility imbued therein.

Zen & Samurai
With the spread of traditions, the reverence towards the Buddhist monks, the pioneers of traditions, by the populace begun to grow in leaps & bounds. As in china, the Japanese feudal lords were to become restless over the sphere of influence Buddhist Temples had over the populace. Eventually the Samurai were ordered to put the Buddhist temples to fire & sword. Ironically, the raging flames of insane violence made Buddhist monks even more influential.

Caffeine & Tannin in Tea
The beverage of Tea has the quality of being refreshing & calming at once. Once the boiling water is poured into tea leaves, for the first couple of minutes, the caffeine is drawn out; in the very next minute Tanin is drawn out. The unique combination of the two chemical compounds accounts for the quality of the beverage of tea.

Ceylon Tea Plantation, Central Highlands of Sri Lanka

The Samurai encounter Buddhist monks
The Samurai, the fierce warriors in calamitous era, honor bound to hold their lives subservient to the unwavering loyalty towards their feudal lords had assumed the Zen Buddhist monks would run for their lives at the first sight of blood. But then the Buddhist monks indoctrinated in the impermanence of all worldly matters couldn’t be ruffled from their serenity even in the face of mindless violence. The Samurai, who had been simmering with violence at all times, who had thought of the ordinary populace & monks as living testimony to cowardice, were taken aback to witness that there were means other than violence which would make one infused with indomitable courage.
Some of the Buddhist monks continued to meditate even as their temples were raging with fire & their fellow monks were put to sword. Such was the lasting impression of the phenomenon made on the Samurai, who aspired to be on par with the nobility & imperial court of Japan in terms of literary skills & intellectual faculties during the 11th & 12th centuries, took to Zen Buddhism with great fervor.

During the 13th century, upper class Samurai were already highly literate as a result of introduction of Confucianism from China during the 7th to 9th centuries. The practice of Zen Buddhism by Samurai resulted in them overcoming the fear of death & tendency towards killing at a mere whim. The 13th century also saw the formalization of Bushido, the Japanese code of conduct of Samurai warriors. In time the Samurai were to become an outstanding community among the most zealous disciples of Zen and tea.

The Samuari takes to Zen & tea
The Samurai found Zen as well as tea served a purpose in their very existence, which could be cut short at any moment in the battle if not at a mere whim of their feudal lord. Feudal lords of Japan called Shoguns developed a practice of gifting special jars of tea to Samurai for exceptional display of valor in the battlefield so that they could invite his kith & kin to a tea ceremony celebrating the occasion.

Tea ceremony begins to take shape
In time the tea drinking habit of Zen Buddhist monks was to create an extension into the wider, secular culture of Japan in the form of tea rituals. The initial incursion of tea habits into aristocratic circles of Japan resulted in evolving the order, art and simplicity in Japanese tea ceremony encapsulating the four principals of Japanese code of ethics: harmony with people & nature; respect for others; spiritual purity & tranquility.
With aesthetics of tea ceremony on ascendance, the ritual was formalized by the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa in the 15th century. An everyday activity was brought up to a level of awareness that would detach all from the militarized feudal system albeit for a limited duration of the tea ceremony. Guests sat in serenity & took their own sweet time to taste & enjoy their tea in the calm atmosphere devoid of chatter & babble.
Within the confines of the tea house, all guests were put on an equal footing: nobody carried arms. Social status & military statues of the guests seized to exist: the peasant was held in the same esteem that the emperor was held. Tea ceremony was a far cry from then existing feudal system, a far cry from today’s calamitous modern world.

The logo of Pure Ceylon Tea, the Finest Black Tea in the World

The Finest Black Tea in the World: Ceylon tea from Sri Lanka
The Finest Black Tea in the World, since the British Colonial era has come from the Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka. Originally grown by the Scotsman James Taylor and in good time marketed by the Irishman Thomas Lipton, Black Tea of Sri Lanka came to be known as Ceylon Tea, after the British colonial name of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s Ceylon Tea is grown mainly in the Central Highlands, the one and only mountain mass of the tropical island. The southern district of Galle, the district of Badulla and the district of Ratnapura too produce a considerable volume of Black Tea. Of all the tea growing zones of Si Lanka, Sri Lanka Holidays health sanatorium of Nuwara Eliya [the modern city, 1800 meters above the sea-level was founded By Samuel Baker, the discoverer of Lake Albert and the explorer of the Nile] of Central Province produces the finest of the High Grown Ceylon Tea of  Sri Lanka.

Of all the Black Tea growing zones of Sri Lanka, the Central Province encompassing the Central Highlands i.e. the districts of Kandy [altitude: 500 meters] and Nuwara Eliya [altitude: 1800 meters] are largely instrumental in making Sri Lanka one of top three Black Tea exporters of the world year after year since the British Colonial era of the island.

Ceylon Tea, Ceylon Coffee & United Biology

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 province was long neglected in view of the Black Tea cultivation in the Central Highlands of  Sri Lanka.

Ceylon Tea Plantation, Central Highlands, Sri Lanka

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; the world’s first ever wildlife reserve is Sri Lanka Holidays Mihintale; the world’s first recorded Veterinary hospital was established in Sri Lanka Holidays Anuradhapura during the reign of King Buddhadasa (340-368 AD) of Sri Lanka, who himself was an illustrious Ayurvedic physician & Veterinary  surgeon.
Ancient Sinhalese record of live and let live principle towards all living beings has been unparalleled throughout the 2552 years of unbroken recorded history as chronicled in Mahawamsa. Such was the Sinhalese history & tradition shattered by the British colonialists [1805 – 1948] in Ceylon.

CeylonTea & indentured labor from South India by the British colonialists in Ceylon
Moreover, tea being an all year crop, the indentured South Indian labor brought into Ceylon for the purpose of cultivation was to create untold disturbances in the ancient island of the Aryan 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 Aryan Sinhalese by the Dutch firstly, the British secondly, were to disturb the demography & social fabric of the ancient island to unfathomable depth. Europeans enjoyed Ceylon tobacco & Ceylon Tea, the finest Black Tea in the world. The little island nation paid a heavy price.

Ceylon Coffee
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 coffee industry, the highest annual production exceeded 50 million kg of highest quality Ceylon 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 disease, the coffee industry in Sri Lanka then called Ceylon declined. The lion-hearted planters of Ceylon (to give the devils their due) wouldn’t be denied of their due success story yet to be unraveled by a single calamitous misfortune. In an attempt to avoid financial ruin, the Ceylonese planters (mainly British) converted their decimated acreage of Ceylon Coffee to CeylonTea: millions of infected bushes were uprooted & set fire with untold heartache. With awe-inspiring courage, tea was planted in every inch of what were once hills of Ceylon coffee. Tea took root and flourished in the Sri Lanka Holidays Central Highlands: Ceylon tea. Since then Sri Lanka has been the producer of finest Black Tea in the world: Ceylon Tea. Ceylon Coffee production of Sri Lanka, today is a low-key industry geared solely for the local consumption in Sri Lanka.

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: coffee is the most chemical intensive crop consumed by the humans.
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 direst sun and sprays of pesticide, in turn required chemical fertilizers. Moreover direst 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 direst 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 complication; 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 in the marine life of the rivers that originate in the Sri Lanka Holidays Central Highlands and runs in the radial pattern to the surrounding plains.

Ceylon Coffee in poly culture
In Poly Culture, farmers provide shade for the coffee plantation with particular tree and plant species, including fruits and vegetable for the farmer as well as for the market. At present, it is estimated that there are over 3000 farmers of shade-grown Ceylon 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 to regain the reputation for quality won and lost nearly a century and a 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. The 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 and let live: co exists with other living beings; go with the concept of United Biology. That is to go with the god.