The flag-bearer of Ceylon tea

I have been thinking of Sri Lanka ever since I heard of the death of the legendary Merrill Fernando, who created Dilmah Tea, last week. Everyone who visits that country is likely to taste, or bring back, Dilmah Tea.

- Aravinda Anantharaman

In 2011, it was my first introduction to flavoured teas at the Galle Literary Festival, where endless cups were available to all at the Dilmah stall.

The tea industry in Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was known, too came up with the East India Company, a little after India, in the late 18th century. The island used to be coffee country until the coffee rust disease hit. Tea replaced coffee and became a thriving industry. And, as with India, Ceylon tea remained a commodity for a long time, exported to the West, where it was blended, packaged and retailed. Fernando, beginning a career in the tea industry in the 1950s as a 20-something, was appalled at how his country's tea transformed along the supply chain-and how little of the profits came to the farmer. He believed the tea must be packaged at source.