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Aitken Spence & Co. (AS) had been involved in tea/rubber plantations for well over 100 years as an Agency House. However, plantations were nationalised in the early seventies and the estate agency business came to an abrupt end. Fortunately, Aitken Spence was in Shipping and Insurance and had by then diversified Read More
The factory at the Hethersett tea plantation played an important part in the development of Sri Lanka’s tea industry, and in helping Pure Ceylon Tea to become renowned as the world’s favourite beverage.Tea from the Hethersett factory was the first to fetch the highest price in the world for silver tip tea from Ceylon. Read More
“Do you know the difference between a Rubber Tree and a Tea Bush, young man?”, thundered Eardley Hermon to a quivering nineteen-year-old ‘fresh-face’ just out of St. Thomas’ College Mt Lavinia on 1st July 1969, on the steps leading to the Manager’s Bungalow of Poronuwa Group, Kahawatte. Read More
The recent passing away of Maxwell Fernando was not just a profoundly sad event for his family and friends, but it was also an incalculable loss to the tea industry, to which he devoted most of his adult life.In over 125 years, the Ceylon and Sri Lankan tea industry have spawned many great personalities and characters Read More
Ralston, who passed away very recently, demands appreciation if not comment, on account of his unique individuality. Mourned he would have been, by his many friends and relatives but it does not seem right that a man such as he should go unsung.Invariably, appreciations extol virtues and ignore faults. Read More
For many years I used to think how privileged I was to have four friends upon whom, if the need ever arose, I could rely utterly upon. Four men who would stand by me. Four men I could put my bottom dollar on, so to speak.That was until 1998 when the first, a Jesuit priest, died on Christmas Day. Read More
In Sri Lanka, the relevance of tea to the game of cricket extends further than that of a twenty-minute break that separates lunch and the end of a day’s play. And while tea to the Western world is but a tiny item in a crowded shopping trolley of groceries, in Sri Lanka, it is the trolley itself. Read More
Project HOCT is delighted to present an essay on the history of Ceylon tea written by former tea planter Monte Holsinger as a thesis for his Bachelor's Degree in Management in 2002. This well-researched document comprehensively captures the history of the plantation industry while also touching on the country's colonial past. Read More
