• The Tea Plantation workers’ primary task is to cultivate tea plants & shade trees, maintain the fields, pluck green leaves, maintain the factory, ancillary plants, buildings, account for wages & expenses, and complete the process of manufacture of Made Tea ready for consumption. A road system must be well maintained to provide easy access of the various fields, and transport of green leaf to the factory.

• Therefore, a Tea Estate will necessarily have its own agricultural, engineering, accounting, medical, educational, welfare and other support personnel, resident on estate.

• All workers need to be provided with housing according to their job category and status, along with some plots of land for their vegetable cultivation or animal husbandry.

A section of field personnel, an important segment of the tea people:

Real People Behind Tea

• The plantation worker was called a ‘Coolie’ when Coffee first emerged as the main crop in Ceylon some 180 years ago and later changed over to Tea in the 1860’s. This term ‘coolie’ has been legally banned and no manual laborer can be called by that name since the 1950’s.

• A female worker’s task was to pluck tea leaves, therefore called a Plucker by profession and together with her male counterpart, also a Laborer, formed the backbone of Tea industry in Ceylon. They lived, worked and died in the plantation they were born, virtually making even their remains becoming manure for the tea bushes.

Plucking is a highly skilled operation and is traditionally the work of a woman. They have acquired this skill of selecting the ‘two leaves and a bud’ over the years. No machine can match their uniquely nimble fingers which break the tender leaves and transfer them in handfuls in the baskets they carry on their backs. The speed they do this task is simply amazing.

In the recent past, plastic bags have replaced baskets made of cane or bamboo.

The Tea Pluckers, who, despite their humble living, have ready smiles to offer a visitor. I am sure their cheerfulness makes a cup of Ceylon Tea adding that extra quality sought for by a tea drinker.

THE REAL PEOPLE BEHIND TEA....

Pic below indicates typical protective clothes worn by pluckers in the olden days. Due to harsh, wet and windy conditions in tea growing areas during most part of the year, the pluckers had to cover themselves with thick, coarse and cheap blankets, called "Cumblies." Carrying such heavy head gear in addition to leaf-loaded plucking baskets had been arduous a task for the mostly feeble women workers.

In more modern times, the Cumblies have been replaced by somewhat lighter and more presentable polythene or rubber sheets.

• The person who is in charge of these people is called a ‘Kangany.’ When the workers were first imported from neighboring South India, Kangany was the man who hired them to bring them safely to the Tea Estates of Ceylon, for a ‘finder’s fee.’

The Kangany’s generations continued to receive a small portion of the ‘hiring charges’, called ‘Pence Money’, based on the worker’s daily out-turn to work. Those who ‘netted’ the highest number of workers from India were called the “Head Kangany” of the estate.

The Head Kangany maintained significant influence on the British Planter. Children of some of these Head Kanganies later became successful professionals, such as doctors, engineers, politicians and even planting executives. The Kangany ensures outturn of his labor force for work and also supervises them. Head Kangany does not directly supervise workers.

• The supervisor in charge of the workers was called a ‘Conductor’ and the person immediately under him was a ‘Kanakkapulle” (literally meaning Accounts Keeper). Nowadays, these supervisory staffs are called a Field Executive, Field Officer or Assistant Field Officer according to their ranks.

Pic shows a Field Executive in early 1900’s:

• The person in charge of the Tea Factory and Manufacture was called a ‘Tea Maker,’ who is now known as a Tea Factory Officer or Executive.

• The man who is in charge of the Estate Accounts and Administration Office was the Chief or Head Clerk, also known as an Office Assistant at present.

• Any person who is in charge of a Tea Plantation is also generally known as a Tea Planter.

• A typical Tea Estate also employs other staff not directly involved with the production of Tea, such as Estate School Teacher, Estate Medical Assistant, Midwife, and Welfare Officer.

The British management of Tea estates found these arrangements to be working extremely well to run their estates.

The Field People Behind Tea:

The planter is always assisted by a Field Assistant or a Kanakapulle (K.P.)to run his day-to-day field operations.

Pic below shows Planter Ian Gardner with Sathasivam K.P. at Glenlyon Estate in 1952.

The best companion of a Planter in the early days of Ceylon Tea was his pet dog. The ever grateful dog follows the master wherever he goes.

See how the planter's dog is by his master's side even at the weighing shed!

(Pic: Ian Gardner)

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