Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c5.s1.45

v1.c5.s1.45

The history of tea exports to India from China is not very long, with the custom of tea drinking in India only going back to the era of the Mongol conquests in Asia. The Indian word for tea, "Chai", is very similar to that in Mongolian, Turki, Persian, Portuguese, Greek and Russian. Early Ming records, such as the works of Ma Huan, Fei Xin and Gong Zhen who had travelled to the west together with Zheng He, do not contain any references to Indians drinking tea, while on the contrary, there were records of other beverages consumed by Indians such as cow milk, rose water, mulse and all kinds of wine. They observed the food habits of Indians very carefully, and it is unlikely that they would not have noticed the custom of tea drinking among Indians if there was any. In fact, Ma Huan's *Ying Ya Sheng Lan* said categorically that "no tea was sold on the market", while the work *Records of Western Countries* also said that there was no tea drinking custom in India. It is likely that tea drinking was picked up in India only under the influence of the large amounts of tea shipped through India to the West by the British and Dutch East India Companies.