A Year in Green Tea and Tuk-Tuks: My Unlikely Adventure Creating an Eco Farm in Sri Lanka [Paperback]

Rory Spowers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2010

BBC journalist and environmentalist Rory Spowers wanted to finally live his dream and abandon life in London for a more ecologically sustainable lifestyle. Moving with his wife and two toddler sons to a 60–acre abandoned tea estate in Sri Lanka, Rory sets out to create a model organic farm there and earn his livelihood from the land. The fascinating story begins with the tsunami and Rory's sudden involvement with the relief efforts, and charts the course of his adventures over 12 months culminating in the launch of his new business (making a living by selling the produce he grows). It chronicles the highs and lows of this radical change, and reveals what it takes to live a sustainable life. It will also include tips for those of you who wish to live a more environmentally friendly life. Spowers' narrative brims with adventure, harrowing moments, and small triumphs as he comes to know the people and the land and works toward creating his dream of a sustainable, model forest garden.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Rory Spowers writes with candour and wit about the agony and ecstasy of trying to live the green dream with his young family in an abandoned Sri Lankan tea plantation!Inspiring stuff." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall "This is a book of great charm and warmth that captures perfectly the restless spirit of all of us. I heartily recommend it." Tim Smit, co-founder of The Eden Project ' ..a fascinating read that will engage anyone interested in organic farming.' Lifescape magazine '..utterly absorbing' Environment UK

About the Author

Rory Spowers is an environmental writer and broadcaster whose last book, Rising Tides, was critically acclaimed by the Sunday Times and the Observer. He previously worked as a researcher, developing environmental documentaries for TV. In 2002, Rory cofounded The Web of Hope, a UK registered charity compiling an expanding online database of role models for sustainability, social justice, and positive change.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK (April 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007233094
• ISBN-13: 978-0007233090
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,638,028 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #44 in Books > Travel > Asia > Sri Lanka

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars An Ecological, Spiritual, Fabulous Book - A Year in Green Tea & Tuk Tuks, September 24, 2009

By 

Malayna Dawn "Malayna Dawn" (Sri Lanka) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Year in Green Tea and Tuk-Tuks: My Unlikely Adventure Creating an Eco Farm in Sri Lanka (Paperback)

This book was given to me as a gift by a friend who knows me very well. (Thanks, Meghana!) It's the personal and true story of a British guy who decides that Sri Lanka is the place to build his ecological dream.

I related to this book on so many levels--from the part of me who is an expat and understands the culture clashes, to the part of me who sees Sri Lanka as a paradise that must be preserved, to the part of me that loves the connection between spirituality and ecology. It's all here!

With chapters like "Lanka or La-La-Land?" about his decision about whether to live in Sri Lanka or Los Angeles (to which I would answer "both!") and passages like, "I found myself on a spiritual quest. I began to believe that the world was engaged in a transition, shifting our values from competition and greed to cooperation and synthesis, giving birth to a new vision, the `divine marriage' of inner and outer, male and female, reason and intuition, Matter and Spirit," Rory Spowers continued to strike very personal chords.

The beauty is, he's done it. He has taken 60 acres in the South of Sri Lanka and dedicated it to organic produce, green tea, natural ecosystems, sustainable living, and marrying the best of nature and innovation. It's called Samakanda, which means "peaceful hill". I can't wait to visit!


Written by Malayna Dawn, author of "Echoes Across Time", a spiritual adventure novel set in Sri Lanka, and an eco-ethical blogger for Garments Without [....]. This was originally published on her blog.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Spicy breezes o'er Ceylon's Isle, September 8, 2007

By 

Sarakani (Harrow United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Year in Green Tea and Tuk-Tuks: My Unlikely Adventure Creating an Eco Farm in Sri Lanka (Paperback)

Where every prospect pleases ... to quote from a missionary poem. Since reading this book, I have made Rory Spower's Samakanda website my home page - but for how long I wonder as it is at least one year out of date though it still has some nice pictures with a peaceful feel. This is an account of setting up an organic forest garden estate on the island of Sri Lanka covering the period of one year. Based on the website - I have doubts that the initial flowering indicated in the book is yielding Spowers the income he deserves or expected ... he will need to build on a career as a writer and communicator and not as the agriculturalist he is seeking to become. The obvious flaw in the book is that it only represents a one year account and is thus still not backed up by core knowledge and experience on settling down in Sri Lanka (and the evidence for this in a period of greater than one year is yet to come). Spowers does not actually express what he thinks about the locals or even Sri Lanka as a place, though he provides some useful portraits with sensitivity. This cardinal volume is thus very sketchy and leaves room for a sequel.

Feeling a bit sick of the UK, particularly as an environment for raising children, Spowers decamps his whole family to Sri Lanka which has to be one of the bravest decisions possible given that the island has a terrorist problem, foreigners are not welcome with open arms unless they are tourists and finally, that Sri Lanka is not usually "on the map" and when it is - it's usually for the wrong reasons. Spowers has the reminiscences of his father and a colonial context to build on in his adventure and just when they have settled into Sri Lanka and think things could not be better, the tsunami strikes.

Spowers has a steep learning curve in dealing with the Sri Lankans in getting their trust and co-operatiion without getting fleeced or emotionally scarred. Armed with a modest fortune he purchases 60acres of prime old time estate land in the south of the island and endeavours to create a sort of eden out of it based on organic, eco friendly ideals, and getting the environmental message out there with the locals. This has to be a magnificient aim.

They realise just how poor most locals are and desperate for funds, and how to get the best of the workers. The people Spowers hires are not up to scratch, and eventually he finds a Tamil manager who brings order to the chaos of his estate as certain workers threaten to build on his land and create divisions between the estate and the local village.

There is a fair bit on the hardship, challenges and support he receives in setting up (what a friend of mine has described as) the eden project in Sri Lanka. Spowers apppears to have only inspiration for backing - his travels and the setting up of the Web of Hope which deals with environmental concerns. Spowers realises that action is harder than words and needs to compromise environmentally for his families' good (so he can't abandon flying or driving using petrol). There is so much appreciation of Indian/Sri Lankan culture though not necessarily the sort of respect/knowledge for/of it that would really establish a bond. Spowers in not going native and takes the best elements from Sri Lanka such as ayuruvedic medicines when his children can't be treated any other way, as well as contributing his own culture in the context of outdoor pizza ovens and organic gardening including green tea.

Not many birds or animals are mentioned though habitat in his estate is covered and how he creates a space good for commercial agriculture as well as biodiversity and elements of tourism. His is primarily an educational enterprise which would suffer from funding and publicity constraints. Spowers is doubtless working on these areas.

Spower's by the act of coming to Sri Lanka and flying a green banner has done a tremendous service to the "politic" of the Island, encouraging a new way of looking at the earth based on harmony with nature.

Somewhat disappointingly, the books comes to a rapid close - at least the section dealing with his challenge of setting up "Samakanda" - Peaceful Hill in Sri Lanka - his bioversity estate. There follows after this a series of essays dealing with the most important environmental issues with some relevance or mention of the UK and Sri Lanka (as an aside). I think the essays could have instead been intergrated in the main text or covered elsewhere as the Sri Lankan half is the cream of this book. Sri Lanka needs models of utopia now, more than ever before given its illustrious past glories which have now largely crumbled and with Spowers - there is a taste of a utopia to come.

It is actually a very easy, almost throwaway book and nothing to compare with Spower's earlier, perhaps less commercial, more profound contributions to Green issues such as through the magazine Resurgence. I hope his venture succeeds and there will be a sequel. The work is enjoyable to read highlighting Sri Lanka and the environment, and thus enormously stimulating - but how much staying power Samakanda and the web of hope has remains to be seen.