Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c6.s3.t3.1

v1.c6.s3.t3.1

Indigenous tea plants have been growing in the hilly areas of Assam and Northeast India for a very long time. The use of the leaves for brewing and drinking by local people has also been practiced. However, systematic cultivation of tea in India, based on Chinese tea plants and Chinese tea cultivation and processing methods, began in the 19th century. Given the enormous quantities of tea that Britain purchased from China, the British were very keen to find a way to cultivate tea within their own empire. The “discovery” by British botanists that a variety of tea plants was flourishing in Assam, led them to decide on the hills of Assam and north Bengal as a suitable region for beginning the systematic cultivation of tea. During the visit of the British envoy, Lord Macartney to China in 1793, tea plants were smuggled out of China to India but these failed to flourish. Initially, the British East India Company was reluctant to jeopardise its monopoly of trade with China by smuggling out tea plants and trying to undercut its own profitable trade in Chinese tea. However, with the end of the Company’s monopoly in 1833 and faced with financial difficulties in its administration in India, it began to actively encourage the cultivation of tea in India. In 1834, it set up a Tea Committee and sent G. J. Gordon to China for this purpose. Apart from acquiring Chinese tea seeds and tea seedlings, the company’s representatives were charged with recruiting Chinese tea growers and persuading them to go to India. In this venture,