Tagged: maniram dewan
How Assam Tea Began
Assam tea was not discovered. It was commissioned. The East India Company already held the valley, lost its China tea trade in 1833, set a committee to ask whether tea could be grown inside the Empire, and sold the first eight chests in London in 1839. Here is how those moves, and the people behind them, made an industry.
Maniram Dewan, the First Indian to Plant Assam Tea, and the British Who Hanged Him
Maniram Dewan ran the Assam Company's tea operation, then quit and planted the first Indian-owned commercial tea gardens in the 1840s. In 1853 he petitioned the British in writing and was dismissed; they hanged him on 26 February 1858. Here is the plain record.
Phalap: The Singpho Tea the British Did Not Discover
Robert Bruce learned of wild tea from a Singpho chief in 1823. The Singpho tea, phalap, was registered as a Geographical Indication of Arunachal Pradesh in January 2024.
The History of Assam Tea
The complete record of Assam tea: the wild assamica plant noted in 1823, the British annexation that opened the valley, the first eight chests sold in London in 1839, the Assam Company, the CTC machine that put Assam in the world's tea bags, and the region that grew into the largest tea producer on earth.