A Tribute in Tea and Drums: Merrill J. Fernando’s 70 Years in Tea, with Ravibandu

This transcript was created automatically from the audio and checked for names. Minor errors may remain.

So Ravi, I want to show you a little bit more about some teas. Now, these are pure teas. These are beautiful teas. Now, here, you know, when you appreciate a tea, it's first on the eye, it's then on the nose, and only finally on the palate. It is the third and final stage of appreciation. Now, here on the nose, you have almost a little sweetness, little floral note, and that is exactly what we are expressing in the body. So the tea here, we have, maybe if we can, it is so light, it is incredibly elegant, a little bit of sweetness at the end, then around the edges of the tongue, a little bit of texture, almost creaminess, fruit, and so on. And then we have here an oolong. On oolong, it's a semi-fermented tea.

So you see in these leaves, it's a little bit more intensity. It's not as complex, not as soft as the silver tips, and you can see it in the color also. It's slightly darker. A little bit darker, exactly. And in terms of the taste, you have little malt tea. Can I try? Yes, please do. Little malt tea, a little bit earthy, because it's semi-fermented. So it's not a full-bodied black tea, but it's somewhere in between. Now, green tea, this is made on our Emerald Hills tea garden. You can almost, the herbal name, it's grassy, it's herbaceous, and that has a very specific, it's soft, it's a little bit savory, but also sweet. So it's very complex. So the herbaceousness, it gives a little bit of savoriness.

Let me check the sweetness of it. Please do. Very complex tea. It is neither savory, nor sweet. It is neither astringent, nor too soft, but it has presence. It's what we would call quite a majestic tea, because of its complexity. Now we come to another majestic tea. This is grown a little bit south of Ratnapura, and you can almost smell the woodiness. It's fully fermented, and so it has much greater intensity. You can taste a little bit chocolatey. That's from the earthiness. You can taste also a little bit of softness. That's from the fact that it is a large leaf. It is a beautiful tea, but please try some. Notice at the end, a little bit of chocolate, almost like bitter chocolate. That's from the earthiness, but it's a very refined earthiness. It's not too caramel-y. It's not too burnt, but it's nice, delicate, like a pure chocolate. Now here you have a high-grown. Now how you can see the difference in the high and the low-grown is

that the low-grown tea, because of the heat, the humidity, it's come out much darker. Now you see green, flecks of green. We don't have the best of light, because the weather is not in our favor today, but you see flecks of khaki and green. Yes, yes. That means it's more high elevation, and there you have. So you have a little bit more softness, but some astringency here.

A beautiful high-grown, flowery, broken-orange pickle. So we're going to look at some of these, and then I'm going to ask you, these are three teas that we produced for my father's 90th birthday, because his 90th birthday in May this year coincided also with his celebration of 70 years in tea. So we have from Craighead Estate. Craighead is Navalapitiya. We have a celebration Pekoe. We have from Endana Estate, which is down in the Ruhuna region, somewhere near Gaul. You have the Sapphire Pekoe, and from Emerald Hills, which is in Kandapola beyond Nuwara Eliya, you have our anniversary green tea. So this is, in fact, a tribute to him. It is exactly a tribute to him. I am honored that I can participate in this beautiful act of honoring a great pioneer of our country. Wonderful. That's fantastic. So I think maybe we should get on to it. Let's do it.

Yeah. Welcome to Tea Inspiration. We're on Dankhild Estate this morning. We have some amazing teas. We have a white tea. We have a new long. We have a beautiful Ceylon green, and we have two spectacular Ceylon black teas, but we also have something very secret and very special for you today. They are the line of three teas that were designed and made as a tribute to none other than to a man who devoted his life to tea. When my father turned 90 on May 6th this year, we presented him these three teas which symbolize his commitment of 70 years in tea. Now, that commitment is very special because it echoes something that we're going to do today. It echoes his love for tea to spend a lifetime devoted to this beautiful herb. There has to be something special about it, and there has to be something special about his tribute. Now, I have here with me an artist of a slightly different art, but still no less echoing nature. And he's going to

show you a little hint of his art before he shows us much more. Maybe we can get a hint of what we are going to see, Ravi, or you're going to... Yes. Okay. As you have a range of teas here, it's all tea, but different teas of different nature. Here is one drum that can produce sounds of different natures. And we're going to see more of that. So, hold onto your seats. Get ready for an experience that is unique. Ravibandu is an artist that Sri Lanka celebrates. His understanding and his respect for percussion mirrors exactly my father's love for tea. And where two passions meet, you know there's going to be something fantastic. Ravi, let's get to it. Sure.

So, we have an artist with passion, and we are going to challenge him. You know, they say that when you make tea, you have to produce fine tea by using the traditional method. And the traditional method involves taking the leaf, rolling it, and you roll it to bring out the juices. And that's what we're going to do with Ravi. We're going to challenge him because he's an artist of great and internationally renowned talent. So, we are going to squeeze him a little with a challenge. And this is a challenge that has never been put before to a musician of his caliber and with this Sri Lankan heritage. And it is this. It's not the sound because I am no artist in percussion, but I do know my tea. And here we are going to challenge Ravi with the softest of white teas.

Light, bright, sweet, notes of lychee. Well, it's Ramutang season. So, let's say notes of Ramutang, that sweetness, and a little bit of a creamy edge. We're going to go to an Oolong, a Ceylon Oolong. So, it is light, bright, similar to the white tea, but it is earthy. Why? Because it has had a light fermentation. And then we are going to go to this finest of green teas. It's a Ceylon green tea from our Emerald Hills Tea Garden. That's majestic. It's complex. It's herbal. It talks of a language of grassiness, of nature. It's truly an expression of nature. Of course, these all are, but this one in particular, it's beautiful. It's neither savory nor sweet. It's complex with multiple layers of herbaceousness. And then we come to black tea. Now, black tea is different from these because the white tea is not fermented at all. The Oolong is lightly fermented. The green is not fermented. Now, black tea is fully fermented. Now, this black tea is made

in the low elevation region, a little bit south of Ratnapura. It has woody intensity. It's juicy. It's malty. It's a little bit earthy. And it's complex in a fruity sense, you know, like not conventional fruit, not raw fruit, but in terms of stewed fruit. So, it's beautiful. It's spectacular, figs and so on. And then we go a little bit up the mountain. We come to this area, possibly a little bit closer to Nuwara Eliya. And you have a flowery, broken orange Pekoe. Fbop. It's bright. It's light. It's spectacular. Now, I'm going to ask you Ravi or challenge you to produce a melody that might incorporate all of this in your mind.

Okay, I'll take up the challenge. Let's see. I never doubt that you will not take up the challenge. But the beauty is Ravi, that we talk here of nature. And as you have already expressed what your art is, percussion, it's about the expression of nature. So, over to you. So, let's begin with the softest of sounds here with the tabla representing the white teas.

Moving on to oolong. A little stronger, maybe. What do we have next? We have green tea and more herbaceous, majestic tea. Grassy. And near Ahtapura, we have black tea, woody, quite strong, low country tea. Mountain, we go towards Nuwara Eliya. Light, bright. You've done them all. Wow. What a beautiful rhythm Ravi. It captured perfectly each of these teas. But now I'm going to challenge you again. Because when we designed these teas for my father, we produced them specially. They were produced in January. We harvested, we produced the teas. And we had on Craighead Estate, this celebration Pekoe. It is a spectacular tea and it expresses the lightness of a black tea. So, it has that oakiness. It has that beautiful woody character that is appreciated in tea. This is, I believe, your spoon, if I can maybe balance this. I don't want to spill it on your drum. So, it is light, it's soft, but it is a black tea. So, it doesn't have that intensity, but it is light and soft, a very regal tea. And maybe I can offer you this

which is also a black tea and which is our sapphire Pekoe from Endana Estate. Now, Endana is down near the city of Galle. It is a little different. And then finally, also from Emerald Hills, we have this spectacular green tea, Ceylon Green. So, you have three very different teas, but all very regal teas. Yeah. So, on Craighead Estate, in Navalapitiya, you have in that valley a particularly unique terroir. And that is what you're seeing here. It's bright, it's soft, it's a little floral. Endana, sandy soils, it's hot, it's short range, daytime, it's sometimes 34, 35 degrees. Nighttime, it's not much different, not like what we had here. And so, you have finally that softness of a beautiful loose leaf Ceylon green tea from Emerald Hills. Now, I'm going to ask you to express that in a tribute which I would like you to present to my father.

I was just going to say that all three teas are a tribute to a great Sri Lankan, a pioneer in the art of tea. And well, I'm going to play a glorious section from Magul Bera, the ceremonial drums as a tribute to a great son of Sri Lanka.

Magnificent. I couldn't think of a better way of paying tribute to my father's lifetime in tea. Thank you Ravi. We are honored. And what a beautiful expression, acoustic expression of the beauty of nature in these teas. Thank you very much Ravi. Thank you.