Transition to tea

Ceylon was a latecomer to the global trade in tea. When James Taylor began his experimental attempts at planting in the later 1860s, the two dominant suppliers to the international market were China and, to a lesser extent, Assam in India. Even Taylor's pioneering efforts did not at first lead to much in the way of a significant increase in commercial tea planting or marketing in Ceylon. Indeed, Taylor, from the mid-1860s, was mainly concerned with the cultivation of cinchona rather than tea. We examine his contribution to that enterprise and then chart his early experiments in tea.