Tea plantation owners in India want to make British favourite the country’s national drink
India’s tea plantation owners are campaigning to reclaim tea, a beverage associated with Britishness, as the country’s national drink.
The campaign follows the surge in popularity of tea drinking across India in recent years.
Indians drink more tea than their plantations can produce, particularly those in the north-east of the country in West Bengal.
Bidyananda Barkakoty, chairman of the North Eastern Tea Association, told the Telegraph, “Tea is an Indian beverage, very much part of Indian culture and indigenous to India. The British didn’t bring it from outside, the Britishers however to some extent commercialised and popularised it in India.
Tea was exported from Assam to London in 1830s and clearly shows that we had tea before Britishers came to India.”
“The popularity of tea in India can be attributed to its low cost, medicinal values and refreshing experience.”
Tea had grown in the wild in India since the 12th centaury and was used as medicine by tribes in Assam.
However, it did not become popular until it was found by Scottish explorer Robert Bruce in the 1820s.
Its popularity among Indians began to grow as tea production spread from Assam to the Darjeeling Hills, but plantations exported the leaves to Britain.
However, Indian nationalists such as Mahatma Gandhi frowned upon the production of tea, branding it a British ‘intoxicant’ because of the way it exploited Indian labour.
