History of tea in India a number of iconic foreign tea enterprises including British brands Tetley and Typhoo. As of 2013 the consumption of green tea in India was growing by over 50% a year. The major tea-producing states in India are: Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Sikkim, Nagaland, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Bihar, Orissa. The Indian tea industry as a mass employer has enjoyed the attention of the Indian government. When export sales went down, the government has been sympathetic to the demand of the industry and its cultivators. It has passed resolutions supporting the industry domestically
History of tea and Travels", containing the first European reference to tea, which he calls "Chai Catai"; his accounts were based on second-hand reports. Portuguese priests and merchants in the 16th century made their first contact with tea in China, at which time it was termed "chá". The first Portuguese ships reached China in 1516, and in 1560 Portuguese missionary Gaspar da Cruz published the first Portuguese account of Chinese tea; in 1565 Italian missionary Louis Almeida published the first European account of tea in Japan. Commercial production of tea was first introduced into India by the British, in an attempt to break