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
Kangra tea After a further decline of produce in the 21st century, research and techniques are being promoted, aimed at reviving the brand by increasing the produce. In 2012, the then Union Minister for Commerce & Industry, Anand Sharma, laid the foundation stone for the Palampur regional office of the Tea Board of India, marking a significant step towards the re-integration of the Kangra region into the mainstream of the Indian tea industry. Although Kangra cultivates both black tea and green tea, black tea constitutes around 90 percent of the production. As of May 2015, there are 5,900 tea gardens in the