History of tea Sanjeevani plant is in fact a different plant and is not related to tea. The Singpho tribe and the Khamti tribe also validate that they have been consuming tea since the 12th century. However, commercial production of tea in India did not begin until the arrival of the British East India Company, at which point large tracts of land were converted for mass tea production. The Chinese variety is used for Sikkim, Darjeeling tea, and the Assamese variety, clonal to the native to Assam, everywhere else. The British started commercial tea plantations in India and in Ceylon: "In 1824 tea
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