ORIGIN OF TEA IN INDIA

India is one of the largest tea producers in the world, although over 70 percent of its tea is consumed within India itself. A number of renowned teas, such as Assam and Darjeeling, also grow exclusively in India. The Indian tea industry has grown to own many global tea brands and has evolved into one of the most technologically equipped tea industries in the world. Tea production, certification, exportation, and all other sides of the tea trade in India are controlled by the Tea Board of India. Tea was introduced to India by the British in the 19th century, to overcome the domination of Chinese production. First it was planted on the mountain region, Darjeeling.

Then came the development of tea cultivation on the plains of Assam. This variety was closely related to the Chinese tea plant, which had been imported by the English. It had larger leaves than its Chinese counterpart and flourished best in the plains.

Finally, in the 19th century, the British set up tea plantations in the hilly region of the southern tip of India, in Nilgiri.

Long before the viable production of tea started in India in the 1830s, the tea plant was growing in the jungles of northeast Assam. In 1598, a Dutch traveler, Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, noted in a book about his adventures that the Indians ate the leaves as a vegetable with garlic and oil and boiled the leaves to make a beverage.

In the year 1788, Joseph Banks, a British botanist, informed the British East India Company that the climate in certain British-colonial parts of northeast India was best for tea growing.

 Robert Bruce and his brother Charles, an employee of the East India Company, 

 in 1823 and 1831 they confirmed that the tea plant was certainly a native of the Assam area and sent seeds and specimen plants to officials at the newly established Botanical Gardens in Calcutta.  

But again, nothing was done - perhaps because the East India Company had a monopoly on the trading of tea from China and, as they were doing very nicely, probably saw no reason to spend time and money in another place.

But in 1833, everything changed. The company lost its domination and suddenly woke up to the fact that India might prove a profitable alternative. A committee was set up, Charles Bruce was given the task of establishing the first nurseries, and the secretary of the committee was sent off to China to collect 80,000 tea seeds. Because they were still not sure that the tea plant really was indigenous to India, committee members insisted on importing the Chinese variety.

The seeds were planted in the Botanical Gardens in Calcutta and cultivated until they were sturdy enough to travel 1000 miles to the newly prepared tea gardens. Meanwhile, up in Assam, Charles Bruce, and the other forerunners were clearing suitable areas of land on which to develop estates, trimming existing tea trees to encourage new growth, and experimenting with the freshly plucked leaves from the native bushes to manufacture black tea. Bruce had recruited two tea makers from China and, with their help, he steadily learned the secrets of successful tea production.

The conditions were incredibly harsh. The area was remote and unfriendly, cold in winter and hot in summer. Tigers, leopards and wolves constantly threatened the lives of the workers, and the simple settlements of the tea workers were subject to regular raids by local hill tribes. 

 But they persevered and gradually the jungle was opened up, the best tea areas cultivated under the light shade of surrounding trees, and generate tea gardens. 

Unluckily, the native plants flourished, while the Chinese seedlings struggled to survive in the intense Assam heat and it was eventually decided to make plant with seedlings from the native tea bush. The first few trunks of manufactured tea to be made from native Assam leaf were shipped to London in 1838 and were sold at the London auctions. The East India Company wrote to Assam to say that the teas had been well received by some "houses of character", and there was a similar response to the next shipment, some buyers declaring it "excellent".

After a successful Establishment of Tea industry in Assam's Brahmaputra valley, with factories and housing settlements, the Assam Tea Company began to expand into other districts of northeast India. Cultivation started around the town of Darjeeling in the foothills of the Himalayas in the 1850s. By 1857, between 60 and 70 acres were under tea and, whereas the China variety of the tea plant had not liked the conditions in Assam, here at heights of 2500 to 6000 feet, it grew well. The company pushed on into a remote valley, 800 miles west of Darjeeling.

In the southwestern tip of the country, experimental plantings had been made in 1835, while the first nurseries were being established in Assam, and in the 1850s tea was growing successfully along with coffee. The climate of the Nilgiri Hills, seemed to outfit the plant, and the area under tea gradually expanded.

In 1853, India exported 183.4 tons of tea. By 1870, that figure had increased to 6,700 tons and by 1885, 35,274 tons. Today, India is one of the world's largest producers of tea.