Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c6.s3.t3.5

v1.c6.s3.t3.5

The British made two innovations to the process of tea cultivation. One was the cultivation on a large scale in huge tea estates. The other was mechanisation of the processing of tea leaves including withering, rolling, breaking, drying and sifting. Together with the introduction of new methods of cultivation and plucking, these enabled the tea industry in India and Ceylon where tea cultivation on similar lines was introduced to forge ahead. The reliance on skilled Chinese tea growers was virtually eliminated by the plantation method of cultivation which could be operated with large numbers of unskilled labour sourced in India itself. From forming 91.4 per cent of tea imports into Britain in 1866-70, the share of Chinese tea exports to Britain steadily decreased to just 4 per cent in 1905 with most of the tea imported into Britain coming from India and Ceylon, instead. By the 1880s, tea planters in India also gradually came around to the view that the indigenous variety of tea plant was more suitable for cultivation than the hybrid tea plant based on Chinese seeds and seedlings that had been used earlier.