Tea culture Assam tea is known for its robust taste and dark colour, and Nilgiri tea is dark, intensely aromatic and flavoured. Assam produces the largest quantity of Tea in India, mostly of the CTC variety, and is one of the biggest suppliers of major international brands such as Lipton and Tetley. The Tetley Brand, formerly British owned and one of the largest, is now owned by the Indian Tata Tea Limited company. On April 21, 2012 the Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission (India), Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said that tea would be declared as national drink by April 2013. Speaking on the
Tea production in Sri Lanka missions abroad to give an extra push to the island's 'green gold'". $15 million was funded to promote Sri Lankan brands on international markets during the Iraq war. Later in 2003 the island suffered severe floods in the lower growing tea areas of Sri Lanka. However production still increased slightly by 1.3 percent to in 2004, as the crop recovered. Kenya surpassed Sri Lanka as the largest exporter of tea with an 8.9 percent growth in exports for the year totalling nearly . In 2004 actual tea production in Kenya had increased by more than 11 percent to reach ,