There are several stories about discovery of Tea in India, but the most widely accepted story goes back to about 1815, when an Englishman had said to have noticed that people in Assam drank a kind of tea from a locally growing plant. It was later in 1823, Major Robert Bruce encountered with a Singpho King, where he was offered tea as a medicinal drink, he managed to send some sample of the plant to East India Company's Botanic Garden at Calcutta. The result of the identification was refused for some reason then. Again, Lieutenant Charlton was refused the identity when he sent some samples of the plant to Agriculture and Horticulture Society in Calcutta during his tenure in Assam in 1831. He confirmed that they tasted like Chinese Tea when dried. Finally, Charles Alexander Bruce, brother of Major Robert Bruce sent some samples in 1834, and during the same year on a Christmas Eve, the confirmation of Tea was declared, specifically called the Assam Tea, scientifically Camellia sinensis (var. assamica)
It was almost 175 years ago, the race for growing tea in India began. One of the major reasons was that the Assam Tea was much superior to the Chinese Tea and the English entrepreneurs could easily grow them here in India, to sell the finished products abroad. The plantation consisted of pure Chinese plants, pure Assam plants and also mixed plants producing the best of the Indian Tea. Within no time, tea, which was secret to the Singpho community, who went on elephants to sow the God gifted seeds and collect the leaves from tea trees in forest turned into huge plantations and a global business. There was no looking back for tea plantations in Assam, Dooars and Darjeeling.
In the process, a new kind of society developed based on these plantations. The owners and management force were called the 'Planters'. They were in those days mainly English, Scottish and Irish. They tried to create a small world of their own, which could be similar to their home, yet tuned with the local culture and atmosphere. They created a 'Bungalow Culture' which still can be experienced and a well trained local man power who could serve the Memsahib and Sahibs, the loyalty that still remains.
There are just two forces in the tea gardens or estates, the management and the labour force. The labour forces were mainly tribal people from Bihar, Bengal, Assam, Orissa and Nepal. The best part of the tea labourers is that the women folks are better recognized then the men in this industry. A part of the profits were used to create shelter, medical services, children crèche and schools etc. The lives of the tea labour villages are most of the time better than most of the agricultural villages in this East and Northeast part of India. The labourers are popularly known as 'Bagania', mainly in Assam. Their original culture along with the tea culture has given birth to a folk practice which is very much a character of a tea plantation.
The history and culture behind the everyday cup of tea can only be discovered after living a couple of days in the tea gardens of Assam, Darjeeling and Dooars.
