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
History of tea tea is sweetened with sugar and condensed milk. Usually, Thai people drink Thai hot tea in the morning, frequently with Yau ja gwai (fried dough) or "Pa-tong-ko" (). The varieties of Thai tea include: Turkey is traditionally one of the largest tea markets in the world. Turkish black tea is the most popular drink in Turkey, even more popular than Turkish coffee. The first record of tea in English came from a letter written by Richard Wickham, who ran an East India Company office in Japan, writing to a merchant in Macao requesting "the best sort of chaw" in 1615.