Sri Lanka’s tea, famed as among the world’s best for more than a century and still the country’s top export earner, now has keen competition from frothy cappuccinos, milky lattes and dark espressos.
Trendy coffee shops are springing up across the capital, Colombo, as local and foreign entrepreneurs venture back into business in this country following a ceasefire that halted nearly two decades of ferocious civil war.
Tea is Sri Lanka’s biggest industry and main export. But coffee isn’t new to this lush tropical island off southern India. It was the primary export crop in the early 1800s, when the island was called Ceylon.
A fungus destroyed the coffee industry in the 1870s.
Tea soon took over and has dominated since. But with a ceasefire in place after 19 years of war with Tamil Tiger rebels, many young Sri Lankans want to hang out in trendy coffee shops like fellow hipsters worldwide.
”Tea is boring, and a drink more for the older folks,” said 19-year-old law student Nilmini Samaratunga, clad in blue jeans and a red T-shirt as she sipped a mocha and chatted with friends at Barista Coffee, one of Colombo’s newest cafes.
She said she visits at least twice a week.
”When I want to relax with my friends the choice is definitely coffee,” she said.
Colombo’s response to coffee has been ”overwhelming,” said Barista’s general manager, Sanka Bhowmick.
Barista in Sri Lanka is a joint venture with an Indian company that holds a majority stake in the chain of coffee shops across the region, said Bhowmick, who comes from India.
”The major factor was peace,” said Bhowmick, whose company entered the market after the ceasefire was signed in February 2002.
The Tamil Tigers want a separate homeland for the country’s ethnic minority Tamils, claiming discrimination by the majority Sinhalese.
The war killed more than 65 000 people and left the economy in ruins. Peace talks have been tenuous. But the ceasefire has held for 22 months, fueling hopes of an economic turnaround.
The government invited Barista into the market and said at a recent international aid donors’ conference in Tokyo that the chain’s entry signals Sri Lanka’s bright potential.
Prior to Barista’s entry, coffee shops were largely nonexistent. Since then, however, nearly two dozen have sprung up in the city.
”The ceasefire allows people to stay out late without worrying about their security,” said Muhunthan Canagey, who runs Hot Shots, a coffee shop where business has surged.
Most of the older folk in this island nation are unimpressed with the growing trend.
”For a Sri Lankan not to drink tea is like a Frenchman who doesn’t drink wine. It’s OK to drink coffee as a desert but tea must be your staple,” said Gehan Mendis (61) a retired civil servant.
Industry officials say there is still no strong threat to the tea industry, but coffee consumption is increasing.
Canagey says Hot Shots hopes to open outlets in the central city of Kandy, as well as in the nearby Maldives, a nation of pristine palm-fringed islands that draws high-end tourists.
He said the shop uses coffee beans imported from Indonesia, Kenya and Italy for its 29 coffee blends.
”Unfortunately, the few Sri Lankan growers don’t seem to take the industry too seriously and therefore it’s very difficult to maintain consistency,” Canagey said of local beans.
But a grower who’s marketing Sri Lankan coffee doesn’t agree.
Lawrence Goldberg, an organic farmer from coffee-crazy Seattle, where the Starbucks chain originated, believes Sri Lankan coffee is a ”lost treasure.”
He and a Dutch friend started Hansa Coffee in 1996, roasting and grinding local beans in a garage in Nuwara-Eliya in central Sri Lanka.
Goldberg works with central Sri Lankan farmers who grow a special type of coffee under shady trees. He now supplies 10 to 20 tons a year to hotels and restaurants nationwide.
He said production has increased threefold with the tourism increase since the ceasefire.
”There has been a lot of interest lately among locals and foreigners,” he said.
”We are on a coffee belt, and coffee has a really good future,” said Shani, his Sri Lankan wife. – Sapa-AP