Tea, as we know it, was not indigenous to India. It was a British import, and Assam’s predominance in the tea world owes itself to the complex geopolitical and economic interactions between Great Britain and China that were playing out in the last decade of the 18th century. Tea was being grown in the foothills adjacent to the Assam plains by Tai tribesmen who possibly brought the plants with them during their migration from the Siam-Yunnan frontier. Among the plants which were brought, the ones which adapted fastest to local conditions were the broad-leafed ones which are now referred to as Camellia sinensis assamica, with the bold astringent infusion that many of us are familiar with—the Assam or the English Breakfast tea that awakens one-tenth of all humanity.
