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 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 ,