Tea is not only the most popular beverage in India, but it also carries much of modern India’s history in its leaves. Indigenous plants and local knowledge in Assam form one part of its expansive cultivation in India. British imperialism and India’s participation in the economic globalisation of the 19th century were the other important elements of the great Indian tea story.
Britain’s appetite for Chinese tea produced a large trade imbalance. Opium, whose cultivation was promoted in India by the British, became an unsavoury means of paying for it. The possibility of growing tea in Assam promised to reduce Britain’s dependence on China. For the East India Company that was at once a commercial and strategic opportunity.
The company promoted tea plantations spread across Assam, Darjeeling and the Nilgiri and Annamalai hills in Southern India. An expanding rail network carried the produce to the subcontinent’s ports and from there to distant markets. Indian tea became part of households as the consumption of tea rapidly grew around the world.
Behind the Indian tea boom was a colonial extractive economic strategy. Coercive recruitment brought labour to the plantations. Harsh working conditions sustained their profits. The plantations, companies and trading networks survived the departure of the British. Indian entrepreneurs took over businesses once controlled by foreign capital. Workers and small growers gained a larger place in production.
The empire left India with both the tragedy of extraction and new sources of revenue. While the denunciation of Empire endures, the value of the assets it created remains insufficient. Independent India has not created many global brands. Nor has it built on the most valuable global brands that Assam and Darjeeling inherited from the Raj. The time is now to change that.
Even as it reboots the global recognition of Assam and Darjeeling, India’s tea industry must cope with new challenges. Changing patterns of temperature and rainfall are beginning to undermine the productivity of the plantations. Competition from other producers has become fierce. Consumer tastes are changing worldwide. Small growers are reshaping production. The past reputation of the Indian tea industry cannot protect it from structural changes.
India could not choose the circumstances in which its tea industry emerged. It has the agency now to shape its long-term future. Turning the agency into outcomes demands commercial ambition, care for those who produce it and a willingness to adapt. The responsibility for that choice rests with India.
