Tea production in Bangladesh tea began in the Mulnicherra Estate in Sylhet in 1857. The Surma River Valley in the Sylhet region emerged as the centre of tea cultivation in Eastern Bengal. Plantations also flourished in Lower Tippera (modern Comilla) and Panchagarh which in North Bengal.Panchagarh is the only third tea zone in Bangladesh and most demanded teas cultivated here. Tea was a major export of British Bengal. The Assam Bengal Railway served as a lifeline for the industry, transporting tea from growers in the Surma and Brahmaputra Valleys to exporters in the Port of Chittagong. The Chittagong Tea Auction was established in 1949
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 ,