For many, Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon) and Ceylon tea are
synonymous. The country’s economy and society are deeply intertwined with
the majestic tea leaf. Today, 10 percent of Sri Lankans derive an income
from the tea industry, which generated more than $1.2 billion in export
revenues in 2020.
For more than 125 years, the tea industry has depended on a
tradition-steeped auction where hundreds have convened twice a week at the
Ceylon Chamber of Commerce to buy and sell Sri Lanka’s finest leaves.
When COVID hit, the world’s oldest tea auction, which had functioned
without fail for more than a century, was suddenly unable to bring together
buyers and brokers for the weekly bidding. Plantations and factories had
nowhere to sell their product, buyers were left in a lurch, and millions
were at risk of losing their income.
Sri Lanka’s tea auction faced an urgent need to reinvent itself.
“The whole country said, right—now there’s 2 million people whose lives
depend on this industry . . . we need to look after them,” says Anil Cooke,
CEO of Asia Siyaka Commodities, who led the task force charged with
digitalizing the auction.
With brokers and buyers unable to meet in person, the challenge was not
just to find an alternative to the live auction, but to get it up and
running and yielding good prices—immediately.
Sri Lanka’s tea industry had been mulling a switch to a digital auction for
more than 20 years. But the auction’s nuanced dynamics—which drew on an
innate knowledge of complex tea blends, frenetic in-person competition to
draw top bids, and real-time market feedback—had stymied previous attempts.
With the stakes as high as ever, a team comprising the Sri Lanka Tea Board,
technical experts, the government, brokers, auctioneers, and others came
together to find a solution.
