History of tea in India be the "norm", with China tea a minority taste. Until the 1970s and the rise of instant coffee, Indian tea had almost sole command of the hot drinks market. Its rivals were cocoa, coffee and savoury drinks such as Bovril and Oxo. In the early 1820s, the British East India Company began large-scale production of tea in Assam, India, of a tea variety traditionally brewed by the Singpho people. In 1826, the British East India Company took over the region from the Ahom kings through the Yandaboo Treaty. In 1837, the first English tea garden was established at Chabua in
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