Tea industry bucks climate adversity, produces record crops in 2024-25

When we talk of the plantation industry in India, tea is the first name that comes to our mind.

- Tushar K Mahanti

The tea industry has been a part of the social life and economic arrangement of the country for a very long time. Today, more than 3.5 million workers, mostly rural and tribal, are engaged in the tea industry directly and indirectly. It is a big foreign exchange earner and contributes significantly to the country’s growth dynamic. There is a historical aspect of the tea industry that embodies its past and British colonial legacies in India.

The tea industry in India is nearly two centuries old. It occupies an important place and plays a very useful part in the national economy. Owing to certain specific soil and climatic requirements its cultivation is confined to specific areas of the country. Tea plantations in India are mainly located in rural hills and backward areas of northeastern and southern states. Major tea growing areas of the country are concentrated in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The other areas where tea is grown to a small extent are Karnataka, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Sikkim, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Bihar and Orissa.

Growth of Indian tea industry

The journey of the Indian tea industry began in the early 19th century under the British East India Company, which sought to break China's monopoly by expanding tea plantations in India, especially in the Assam region. The East India Company took over control of the region through the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826 and set up the first British tea garden in Upper Assam in 1837. The commercial production of tea on a bigger scale, however, began from 1840 after the incorporation of Assam Tea Company.