Tanganda Tea Tanganda Tea Tanganda Tea is the biggest grower and producer of tea and coffee in Zimbabwe and one of the biggest tea producers in Africa. It is a competing food corporation in Zimbabwe, and forms part of the Meikles Group, a major Zimbabwean company which also owns hotels and department stores in southern Africa. Tanganda is based in Mutare (formerly Umtali) in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia). The first tea bushes planted in Zimbabwe originated from a box of seeds smuggled out of India in 1924 by Mrs Florence Phillips, a tea-planter’s wife from Assam, and were planted
History of tea in India Tea Board of India. The introduction of Chinese tea plants, different from Indian Tea, to India is commonly credited to Robert Fortune. Fortune employed many different means to steal tea plants and seedlings, which were regarded as property of the Chinese empire. He is also known for his use of Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward's portable Wardian cases to sustain the plants. Using these small greenhouses, Fortune introduced 20,000 tea plants and seedlings to the Darjeeling region of India. He also illegally brought a group of trained Chinese tea workers who would facilitate the production of tea leaves. With the exception of