The Telegraph UK (May 12, 2012)
India claims to reclaim tea as their national drink
A cup of tea may be as British as fish and chips, but India's
plantation owners are campaigning to reclaim it as India's national
drink.
By Dean Nelson, New Delhi
4:57PM BST 11 May 2012
Their campaign to brand the cuppa Indian follows a surge in popularity
of tea or chai drinking across the world's second most populous country
in recent years.
Indians now consume more tea than their plantations throughout the
north-east of the country in West Bengal and Assam produce.
But although tea had grown wild in India since at least the 12th
century, when it was used as medicine by tribes in Assam, it did not
start to become popular until it was discovered by the Scottish
explorer, Robert Bruce, in the 1820s.
Then British East India Company traders were searching for new cheaper
alternative to Chinese tea, which was bought with Indian opium or
silver.
As tea production spread from Assam to the Darjeeling Hills, its
popularity began to grow among Indians, but most of the plantations
exported their tea to Britain.
Its popularity in North India – coffee was in greater demand in the
South – was dented by opposition from Indian nationalists, including
Mahatma Gandhi who objected to exploitation of Indian labour on the
plantations and regarded tea as a British 'intoxicant.' Cheaper
production methods in the 1960s however made it more affordable to
India's poor and saw the rise of the roadside chai stalls, where low
grade tea dust is boiled with milk sugar and spices and served in small
glasses.
Bidyananda Barkakoty, chairman of the North Eastern Tea Association,
said while the British commercialised tea production in India it has
always been an Indian brew and should now be recognised as its national
drink.
"Tea is an Indian beverage, very much part of Indian culture and
indigenous to India. The British didn't bring it from outside, the
Britishers however to some extent commercialised and popularised it in
India. Tea was exported from Assam to London in 1830s and clearly shows
that we had tea before Britishers came to India.
"The popularity of tea in India can be attributed to its low cost,
medicinal values and refreshing experience," he said.
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