History of tea in India be the "norm", with China tea a minority taste. Until the 1970s and the rise of instant coffee, Indian tea had almost sole command of the hot drinks market. Its rivals were cocoa, coffee and savoury drinks such as Bovril and Oxo. In the early 1820s, the British East India Company began large-scale production of tea in Assam, India, of a tea variety traditionally brewed by the Singpho people. In 1826, the British East India Company took over the region from the Ahom kings through the Yandaboo Treaty. In 1837, the first English tea garden was established at Chabua in
Tea production in Sri Lanka biological control (a parasitic wasp, "Macrosentus homonae") to suppress the Tea Tortrix caterpillar, which had threatened the tea crop. In 1941 the first Ceylonese tea broking house, M/s Pieris & Abeywardena, was established, and in 1944 the Ceylon Estate Employers' Federation was founded. On October 1, 1951, an export duty on tea was introduced and in 1955 the first clonal tea fields began cultivation. In 1958, the State Plantations Corporation was established, and on June 1, 1959, Ad Valorem Tax was introduced for teas sold at the Colombo auctions. By the 1960s, Sri Lanka's total tea production and exports exceeded