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
Kenya Tea Development Agency same objectives within the three east African countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika (now Tanzania). Tea growing and production was expanding elsewhere in the world. India, Ceylon (Now Sri Lanka) and the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) were experiencing over-production which culminated in the introduction of international tea growing expansion restriction scheme signed under the first Tea Agreement in Amsterdam in 1933. By then Kenya had planted only about 4,800 hectares under tea and was subjected to the same expansionary restrictions as the major tea growers in the world. The colonial government prohibited local natives in Kenya to grow cash