The Multicultural History of Coffee in Sri Lanka – By Randika Jayakody & Jerome Perera
Source:-Dæhæna
Australia is globally famous for being a hotspot for coffee culture. It is not unusual to have intricate discussions about coffee and chat endlessly regarding the flavours of your favourite cup at a cafe. Sri Lanka was also once a global coffee producing powerhouse, known for making nuanced and flavourful cups of coffee.
It is a history that outlines the global connectedness of the island of Ceylon. Coffee beans possibly first arrived in Sri Lanka in the distant past from Yemen or Ethiopia, likely brought to Sri Lanka by Moorish traders. Commercial coffee cultivation on the island was first undertaken during Dutch Ceylon and later refined under British administrators who oversaw the height of coffee production, before a coffee blight destroyed plantations.
By the 1800s the coffee trade brought together Moors, Scotsmen, Englishmen, Dutch traders, Indonesians and Sinhalese estate workers. Facing labour shortages on estates, migrant Tamil workers contributed to the growth of Ceylonese coffee industries by seasonally arriving and labouring under harsh conditions. Their determined treks through the dangerous jungles of Ceylon on their way to estates, where many fell to wildlife and disease are legendary in their own account. These communities, their cultural contributions and labour greatly influenced the trajectory of Sri Lankan history. Descendants of these individuals still influence the tea industry as excellent pickers.
Coffee production peaked in the 1860’s with Sri Lanka supplying a third of all coffee imports to Europe, making Ceylon coffee world famous. At one time, Sri Lankan coffee was so highly regarded that farms around the world began including the name Ceylon in their own coffee estates. For instance, some farms in the Americas named their coffee “Finca Ceylan”. “Ceylon Estate” coffee in an attempt to gain credibility for their crop. Some plantations in Central America still retain this name. Lingering impacts of this potent past of coffee growing still remain in Sri Lanka. For instance iced kopi, popularised during Dutch Ceylon continues to be regarded as a common snack item in Sri Lanka. The word “kopi” itself is of Dutch origin and the term “kopi kale”, to mean a distant past, is also a reference to Sri Lanka’s illustrious history of coffee growing.
It is also not uncommon to find coffee trees growing wild in backyards and forests. Some of these trees are likely descendants of the original trees that survived Coffee rust in the 1800’s making these trees truly ancient micro-lot speciality coffees. We have had the pleasure of harvesting, processing, and tasting the coffee from these trees and we can attest to their deliciousness. The coffee trade connects Sri Lanka to the entire world, from ancient Arab traders to the Dutchmen and their colonies of Indonesia, from the Scottish and British planters, to Tamil communities that settled in Sri Lanka for its coffee harvest.
Speciality coffee is now coming full circle and making a comeback in Sri Lanka. We hope to once more see Ceylonese single origin coffees in Australia and the rest of the world.
