First, it was cinchona that was tried with good results. Cinchona seeds were planted between the dying coffee trees, and this helped to ward off the evil days to some extant. The prosperity reached in planting cinchona was however short lived. With the introduction of drugs prices dropped out of sight. When this industry got off the ground, quinine was a readily saleable product, with a price mark up of about eleven and half rupees per ounce. Over production reduced it to 75 cents an ounce, and before long they found that the bark from which the quinine was extracted was not worth taking off the tree.

It was only after this calamity that tea was tried. The Ceylon Company Limited was the first to import tea seeds from India, and sufficient information was available as to its propagation. The Ceylon Observer of January 1873 published a stimulating account by Mr. Jenkins, the Manager of the Ceylon Company Limited, on tea seeds and nurseries, and the proper methods to be followed in its planting operations. It said: -

“In the matter of your tea seeds, you should get it sown as soon as possible after you get it, for it does not keep well if allowed to get dry. It is very probable that unless they have been very judiciously packed for their journey, there will be many failures, so I would sow thickly at first in a small nursery and as seeds germinate, or show signs of doing so, take them out and plant them in a regular nursery six or nine inches apart, so that they may be taken up with a spade or trowel with the earth about the roots, when you transplant them into the field where they remain. Tea seedlings will not bear the rough handling that young coffee plants get when they are pot in, and they must be planted with care to injure the roots as little as possible”.

The attention paid to the cultivation of tea, in a way was strange, as this much of observation had not been directed to other products that preceded tea. The enterprising planters got down to the task of planting tea seeds in between coffee plants that were fast sinking towards death. The experiments that were tried out in tea had reached sustainable levels long before coffee received its death warrant. Cinchona in the mean time had helped to generate sufficient income for the planter during the transitional period.

It was during the latter part of the 1830’s that the first tea seeds were received in the island, propagated from the newly discovered Assam indigenous tea plant. These were produced under the watchful eye of Dr. Wallich, the famous botanist attached to the Botanical Gardens of Calcutta. Very little is known of the first batch of tea seeds, but proper records are available regarding the subsequent arrivals in the country. In 1840, a batch of 205 plants in propagated form arrived in the island. Some of these plants were planted on the land of Sir Anthony Oliphant, Chief Justice of the country in the neighbourhood of Queens Cottage, Nuwara Eliya, and some near Essex Cottage, now the Naseby tea estate, a part of Pedro.

The part played by the private sector come into prominence from thereon, and the introductory care taken by the Worms Brothers in the promotion of coffee and then tea cultivation in the country cannot, at this stage be disregarded. “The Warms brothers belong to a remarkable family”, so says Ukers in his book "All About Tea". The eldest, Solomon, was the first Baron de Worms, son of Benedict Worms of Frankfort-on-Main, and his wife, who was the eldest sister of the Baron de Rothschild. The brothers were born traders and adventurers. They were both members of the London Stock Exchange. The sprit of adventure made Maurice to set sail East in 1841, and Gabriel followed him the following year. They set themselves up in shipping and banking business, with Maurice looking after the planting end in the up-country.

Maurice inaugurated the planting enterprise in the country with some Chinese cuttings, which he brought home after a voyage in 1841. These cuttings were planted among coffee trees on their Rothschild, and Sogamma estates, and on Condegalla estate now a part of Labookelle, in the Pussellawa district. The tea produced from these properties is commonly accepted to have cost a guinea a pound to produce, and this was done with the assistance of a Chinese tea maker. Subsequently, the Ceylon Company, which later was renamed the Eastern Produce and Estates Company Ltd. imported Indian labour, and under the direction of Mr. Jenkins, a retired tea planter from Assam, were able to make tea by hand in a temporary factory at Condegalla and at Hope.

The 2000-acre Rothschild estate at Pussellawa was well known for its completeness and efficiency and was held up as a model for others to recapitulate. Rothschild tea was the standard for quality in Mincing Lane for over twenty-five years. With the start made at Pussellawa, they soon reached out and opened Keenakelle in Badulla, Meddecombra in Dimbulla, Thotulagalla in Haputale, Condegalla and Labookelle in Ramboda, and Norwood in Dikoya, with the total holdings of 7318 acres. They held these properties for twenty-four years and sold them to the Ceylon Company for Pounds sterling 157,000, considered a record transfer of European-owned assets.

Whilst on this subject, mention must be made of the other famous coffee estates that went over to tea. There was Delta estate, adjoining Rothschild on the one side, owned by Rev, James Glenie, and Captain Harry Bird’s Black Forest where Mr. F.R.Sabonadiere, the founder of Sabonadiere & Company Colombo started.

Loolecondera situated in the Hewaheta district no doubt was the oldest garden in the island, where tea was planted on a commercial scale. This was originally a coffee estate owned by Messrs G.D.B.Harrison, and W.M.Leake, later incorporated under the name and style of Anglo-Ceylon and General Estates Company Ltd. This property was primarily purchased for the planting of coffee from the crown by Mr James Joseph Mackenzie in 1841.The conversion of coffee to tea at Loolecondera was a gradual process, and James Taylor referred as the father of tea planting in Ceylon, started collecting tea seeds from the Peradeniya gardens from about 1865, on the instructions of the proprietors. The hedge like rows of tea planted along the roadsides became the nucleus of a new industry that ultimately took the country by storm.

Tea cultivation unlike other industries, obtained the blessings from all quarters from the very commencement, and on the recommendations of the secretary of the Planters Association, the Government sent Mr Arthur Morice, an experienced coffee planter to Assam to learn the art of tea cultivation and manufacture. It was on his recommendations that the tea industry got the green light to pursue its propagation further, and the twenty acres planted with tea at Loolecondera became the oldest tea field under continuo's cultivation in the island.

The progress made into tea was rapid, but there was a period of mistrust that existed between 1867 and 1874. The rush into tea really started in 1875. The extant under tea increased from 350 acres in 1874 to 1,080 in 1875, and by 1883 the tea coverage had expanded to 32,000 acres.

By mid 1875, tea was growing in thirteen districts out of the thirty-seven planting districts then recognised. There were no tea plantation north of Kandy, and none on the Uva side. Hewaheta no doubt is indicated as the oldest stronghold of the tea plantations, but what is most significant is the rate of development that took place in the districts of Nuwara Eliya and Yakdassa. In 1875, when James Taylor had planted 100 acres in tea in Loolecondera in Hewaheta lower, Jenkins on Hope in Hewaheta upper had expanded the tea coverage to 136 acres.

In most cases, estates opened up in the Nuwara Eliya district had been mainly for growing tea, and it is only for this reason that it had acquired the proud title of a “Tea District." The leading planter in this district was L.A.Rossiter who in 1875 owned 203 acres. Rossiter remained the owner and superintendent of Fairyland (35 acres) Hazelwood (18 acres) Oliphant (150 acres), with Alston Scott & Company as agents.

He also owned Florence in Yakdessa comprising 100 acres of prime tea. He had been operating extensively in the purchase of suitable tea lands, and amongst them was Ratnillakelle, which he named the “Great Western” estate. Other plantations were Pedro (35 acres) owned by F.Bayley and Tullibody (50 acres) owned by G.Armitage, both under the supervision of E.A Watson.
The devastating attack of Hemileia Vastatrix on the coffee plants began in 1869, and reached their culmination during 1877 and 1878. It was only in 1875 however that the first thousand acres of old and diseased coffee were planted in tea. The subsequent rush into tea was rapid.

During the initial stages, it was the China jat that was widely used in the country with good results, and the reports received from the London brokers had been vary favourable. It was Dr Thwaites, the then director of the Botanical Gardens who directed the public to the advantages of this hardy plant. At the early stages, there were doubts as to the suitability of Assam jat at elevations above the limit of coffee. This impression however was dispelled when Assam varieties were found flourishing well at the Hakgala gardens in the 1868. In 1872, Dr Thwaites saw no reason why the sides of the higher mountains should not be covered with tea, and by 1875 the cultivation of tea in the island was an established commercial success.

Taylor sold his first lot of Assam hybrid tea in Kandy in 1872, and in the following year 23 pounds valued at Rs. 58 were sent to London. Expansion of tea cultivation thereafter was accelerated, and the two Botanical gardens were hard pressed to supply the industry with the required planting material. Large quantities of Assam seeds were imported from Calcutta, but such imports had to be suspended subsequently, due to the possibility of consternation. This led to the establishment of local tea gardens for the procreation of seed.

The Ceylon planter had much to learn, and he did it with undiminished concern and consecration. This led him to install, in place of coffee, a speedily spreading and rewarding industry that helped to win back his earlier losses.