Financial Times

Dilmah puts Ceylon tea history on Internet

Dilmah Tea announced last week the launch of its History of Ceylon Tea website, an ambitious industry service project to reproduce online the history of Ceylon tea.

The site, http://www.historyoftea.dilmahtea.com/, is one of the largest information sites in the world, with almost 35,000 pages which document the creation of Ceylon tea since the mid-1800s.

The project, the first and only one of its kind in the tea industry, is a tribute to the courage of the pioneers of Ceylon tea as a reminder to future generations of the origins of an industry that made Sri Lanka famous, Dilmah said in a statement.

It involves digitally archiving every page of the Planters' Association library, and presenting the indexed pages on the Internet for free access.

It cost Dilmah over Rs. 1 million and took the project team from The Computer Centre over a year to photograph, catalogue and index online the first 108 books or 34,000 pages. The work was completed by a team of seven, working continuously for 14 months.

Those logging in have two options - either browse the entire list of publications and select a year of publication to view the book page by page, or scan for a particular document.

The story began with one man’s desire to give something back to an industry that has given him so much.

A lack of funds for preserving the diminishing collection of literature devoted to Ceylon tea, has led to fragmentation and loss of many important and irreplaceable volumes. In response, Merrill J. Fernando, founder of Dilmah partnered with the Planters’ Association to initiate the ‘History of Ceylon Tea Project’.

Fernando commented, "Dilmah gained consumer recognition globally on the strength of the finest Ceylon tea, and it is only logical therefore that Dilmah should reciprocate, by giving future generations of Sri Lankans the opportunity to study and understand the heritage of one of the world’s greatest plantation industries."

The project will continue with an invitation to planters and other collectors to submit their collections for digital archiving. Where copyright issues do not exist, Dilmah will archive and return the publications.

The History of Ceylon Tea website will shortly be enhanced with a Chat Room facility where tea planters, retired planters from abroad and consumers of tea could chat about Ceylon tea.