Cultivation of tea in the Nilgiris - India & History- Part -1 - (Introduction of tea)
Cultivation of tea in the Nilgiris - India & History- Part -1
Tea is the cheapest drink that is widely preferred by a large number of people in the world today.
Although the tea industry is archaic, it incorporates modern scientific cultivation methods to help those involved in the industry
Introduction of tea:
Tea was introduced to the British in 1898 and to the Portuguese in the 1600s as a result of trade ties between the West and the Low Countries in the eleventh century. However, for the first time, tea was introduced to Western European countries, and today the Dutch are the fundamental Dutch nation to make tea an important beverage in the world. In 1610, they introduced tea and the word ‘te’ to Western European countries. This was followed by the introduction of tea in Russia in 1618, in Paris in 1648, and in the United States in the mid-17th century.
It was introduced to European countries only after 1650 AD. Coffee was then an important beverage in these countries. Thus gradually in the nineteenth century, the practice of drinking tea spread rapidly in Russia, Britain, and many other countries. Tea is widely used in low-income countries such as North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia as it has become an inexpensive beverage. Today tea is cultivated in 38 countries around the world, the most important of which
- India
- China
- Sri Lanka
- Kenya
- Turkey
- Indonesia
- Russia
- Uganda
- Japan
- Mozambique
- Malaysia
- Mauritius
- Bangladesh
- Cameroon
- Brazil
- Peru
- Arjun
- Iran
- Australia
- Papua, New Guinea
- Taiwan
- Malawi
- Zimbabwe
- Vietnam
- Ecuador
- South America
India's role in world tea production;
West Indies, India, China,Sri Lanka ,Kenya , Indonesia etc. Important World tea production in 1986 was 2,233 million kg of which India produced 28 per cent of the world's tea production, giving 20.7 per cent of the world's total exports and leading tea exports.
History of the Tea Industry of India;
By the end of the eighteenth century tea had become a staple beverage in England and from there rose to the level of the average annual consumption of the individual. So it started to become an important business item in the world market. This split the East India trade with China, attempting to cultivate tea in India, and in 1778 Mr.Joseph Banks submitted a detailed report on the cultivation of tea in India to the East India Company. Mr.Warren Hastings, then Governor-General in 1780, imported tea seeds from China. With poems, Colonel Robert Kid attempted to make a tea seedling at the Botanical Gardens in Calcutta. It was only after this that tea cultivation became active in India
The result was that for the first time in 1838, 350 pounds of tea made in India was packed in 12 boxes and exported to London. The tea was sold at the highest auction in London on January 10, 1839. Between 1860 and 1865, an average of 20 million pounds of tea was exported from India to England each year. In 1905, 98 per cent of the total tea consumed in the UK was imported from India. This is an important milestone in history.
Development of the tea industry in South India:
With a quarter of India's GDP being produced in South India, India ranks South India on the map in terms of plantation crops. Coffee was one of the major horticultural crops in the early days of South India. But the coffee leaf rust that appeared in the early 1840s introduced tea as an alternative crop in those areas that were the catalyst for destruction in coffee plantations. Dr. Christie was the first to experiment with tea cultivation in the Nilgiris in 1832. Unfortunately, he survived in November of the same year. Two years later, in 1834, a team set up by Mr.Lord William Painting for Royal Tea Development brought about 2,000 tea seedlings from Calcutta and sent them to be planted in the Nilgiris, Coorg, in southern India. Of these. Only a few days planted in the Nilgiris grew well. This was followed by the cultivation of tea as an intercrop in coffee plantations in the Nilgiris district. Serious efforts were made in the cultivation of tea as the yields on the coffee plantations began to decline
The success of tea cultivation in the Coonoor area of the Nilgiris, The sucess of Mann have been the basis for the development of tea estates in the district. During the ten years between 1859 and 1869, great efforts were made to establish tea estates. With the help of prisoners of war brought from China, the Dunsandil Estate was established in the Thai Oasis Ooty area. The James Finlay Company then established tea estates in the Kannan Devan hills. It is an important event in the history of the tea industry. Next are tea estates in Wayanad and Anaimalai. By the end of 1900, tea was cultivated in 12,670 hectare area in South India and its production reached 23 million kg. Thus small-scale tea cultivation has been started here and today it is cultivated in an area of about 80,000 hectares in South India and produces about 150 million kg of tea. It accounts for 22 per cent of Indian production
This blog is a detail Story and History about Tea Cultivation in India - Nilgiris - further details in the next blog
H.Karthikeyan
Neeer Tamil
Comments
Post a Comment