James Taylor's Loolkandura Estate
The Loolkandura Estate (British pronounce: Loolecondera ; Sinhala: ජේම්ස් ටේලර්ගේ ලූල්කඳුර වතුයාය) is the first tea plantation estate in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) established in 1867 by Scotsman James Taylor. James Taylor, Loolkandura & Ceylon Tea
James Taylor is credited as the one who introduced tea to Sri Lanka [(then Ceylon) Ranasingha, 2020]. Born on 29 March 1835 in a cottage called Mosspark on Monboddo Estate in Kincardineshire, Scotland, Taylor was the eldest of his family (Forrest, 1967). He came to Sri Lanka on 20 February 1852, at the age of 17 and settled down in the Loolkandura estate in Kandy District (Forrest, 1967). He was billeted on Mr Pride's Naranghena Estate (at the time it was a coffee estate) and Taylor stayed there for about six weeks before he was sent to Wal-oya, the adjoining estate [(now a division of Loolkandura) Forrest, 1967].
With the onset of the coffee rust disease, Taylor visited Assam, India in 1866 to learn about growing tea. In 1867, upon …
