Tea time

Some years ago a couple returning from holiday in Sri Lanka gave me this small cardboard box which they'd brought home with them; unfortunately they'd already consumed the contents!
 
The reason for the gift was that as a young man, Arthur Campbell, the originator of Arduaine Garden, had been sent to Ceylon as it then was to manage the family tea plantation. When he retired at the end of the 19th century he returned to his native Scotland, bought some land on coastal Argyll, built a house and planted the garden.
 
The plantation was sold to Brooke Bond and was then nationalised along with the other private tea estates. I was pleased to see that the original name was still being used.
 
Not long after I came to Arduaine an elderly man came up and spoke to me, telling me that in the 1960s he and a friend had come to Arduaine as the friend had some business with Sir Bruce Campbell, Arthur’s son. During conversation Bruce learned that this gentleman had been in India and told him he had something to show him. Up at the top of the garden were some 40ft shrubs which he recognised as tea bushes.
 
I was rather sceptical about the whole story, but when the old gent had left I did some research and discovered that it was Assam tea that was generally grown in Ceylon. According to ‘Bean’s Trees & Shrubs’, Camellia sinensis var. assamica, to give it it’s full title, can ‘grow to 40ft if left unpruned’! You learns something every day!

PS 
Snapper's comment below reminded me that the tale is as yet unfinished! Some time later I happened to be at the Botanics in Edinburgh and noticed a plant of Camellia sinensis var. assamica growing in the Temperate House. Just by chance the Curator happened to be discussing something with a member of staff nearby and as I know him I asked if it would be possible to have some cuttings when the time was right. He agreed and suggested that I gave him a call later on in the summer and he would arrange it. Of course it completely slipped my mind and two years later, when I was speaking to a friend in one of the private glasshouses there, she said 'I have something for you'! To my surprise there were two young plants growing happily away on the bench! That's what I call customer service! The Curator himself, with no doubt far more to do that arrange something for the likes of me, had not only remembered but had asked a member of staff to also remember to take cuttings for me at the right time! I was most impressed! This is one of the wonderful things about people connected with plants and gardening!

One of the plants unfortunately didn't survive, but I think the other is growing on in the frame somewhere - I must look it out and see if it's big enough to plant out!