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.

The Tea That Failed Three Inspections Before Anyone Believed It

Assam tea was rejected in writing at least three separate times, by three different men, over eight years, before the Company's own botanist agreed it was real. The paper trail survives, names included.