History of tea in India

From its legendary origins to modern processing techniques, tea production in India delicately weaves together cultural heritage, economic prowess, and technological advancement.

[2] Tea became widely grown in India as both a cash crop and monocrop; academic Nayantara Arora argued that the emergence of the tea industry in India as a result of British rule led to the transformation of Indian subsistence farmers into industrial agriculturalists whose economic self-suffiency was reduced in favor of market dependence.

In India, the semi-medicinal use of tea brew was noted in 1662 by Mendelslo:[4]At our ordinary meetings every day we took only thay, which is commonly used all over the Indies, not only among those of the country, but also among the Dutch and the English, who take it as a drug that cleanses the stomach, and digests the superfluous humours, by a temperate heat particular thereto.

The same plants had long been cultivated by the Singpho people, and chests of tea were supplied by the tribal ruler Ningroola to the British.

The introduction of Chinese tea plants to India is commonly credited to Robert Fortune, who spent about two and a half years, from 1848 to 1851, in China working on behalf of the Royal Horticultural Society of London.

The tea industry in British India mostly employed indentured laborers, often referred to as "coolies", to work on large plantations.

"[8] From the outset, Indian-grown tea proved extremely popular among British consumers, both for its greater strength, and for its cheaper price.

The temperance movement in Britain massively promoted tea consumption from the early 19th century onwards as an alternative to beer.

Despite enduring exploitation during the colonial era, characterized by low wages, long hours, and inadequate facilities, these women have displayed remarkable resilience.

Their experiences shed light on the complex interplay of gender dynamics, labor practices, and social inequalities within India's tea industry.

[16] Corporations like Tetley, Typhoo, Camellia, TATA, Unilever, Taj,[17] and others have been buying out small tea growers and family-run farms.

Their tea production has followed Green Revolution methods, putting growth and profit over the lives of cultivators and the health of the soil.

[20] TATA has several workers' rights abuse allegations against them, as they do not have protective measures for their farmers when spraying chemicals, they pay low wages, and demand long working hours.

The Indian administration along with the European Union and six other countries (Brazil, Chile, Japan, South Korea and Mexico) filed a complaint with the WTO against the Byrd Amendment, which was formally known as the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 legislated by the US.

The essence of this act was that non-US firms that sell below cost price in the US could be fined and the money is given to the US companies who made the complaint in the first place.

Furthermore, the Indian government took cognizance of the changed tea and coffee market and set up an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) to look into their problems in late 2003.

Moreover, IMC has recommended to introducing means so that the agricultural income tax levied by the state governments can be slashed and the tea industry be made competitive.

It has recommended that sick or bankrupt plantation estates should be provided with an analogous level of relaxation for similarly placed enterprises/estates as are available to industries referred to BIFR.

Beginning in 2013, the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry has been actively promoting the sale of tea in the country's top five export markets for that product: Egypt, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and the United States.

This method, known for its efficiency and consistency, revolutionized tea production by automating key stages of processing, leading to higher yields and reduced labor costs.

By and large, the system has subsequently been successful in increasing the productivity of tea garden workers as they save on daylight by finishing the work during the daytime, and vice versa.

[26] Sagina Mahato, a 1970 Bengali film, directed by Tapan Sinha, deals with labor rights in the tea plantations in the Northeast during the British Raj.