Scientific Paper:

The tea plant, Camellia sinensis (L.) has been cultivated by man for such a long past that its home as a wild plant has been a matter of speculation until recently. Although the origin and preparation of tea has its origin in Chinese mythology, no one had even claimed to have found true ‘wild’ tea in China proper (Ukers, 1935; Kingdouward, 1950). Based on textual evidence, it is now known that tea was used as a medicine during the reign of Emperor Shen Nung of Shang Dynasty in 2737 BC and after the Zhou Dynasty (1000 BC) it was used as a beverage (Chang and Bartholomew, 1984). According to some ancient documents, Yunnan in China is considered to be the birthplace of the first-ever tea plants and certainly the home of the widely acclaimed variety known as “Pureh” tea. From the analyses based on those ancient historical documents, it is known that there is an old tree long known as the “King of Tea Trees” on Mount Nannuoshan in Meghai country of China. Surprisingly in 1961, a large wild tea plant has been discovered in the forest on Mount Daheishan which was over 32 m tall and has a diameter exceeding one meter. Its age is estimated to be 1700 years and still, it yields quality tea leaves. Chang and Batholonew (1984) also reported that at present throughout south China wild tea plant is native in the ever-green forests of Bawangling on Nainan Island, Tianging Shan (Ruynan) in Gangdong province and Nannuo Shan (Meghai) of Yunnan province. Thus, the evidence on domestication and use of tea obtained from ancient documents, the geographical distribution of the plant and modern evidence lead to the conclusion that tea is a Chinese endemic.

From time to time claims have, however, been made that ‘wild’ types have been found outside China. For example, many tea plants were discovered in the hills of Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram (Lushai Hills) and neighboring Burma when the search for discovering ‘wild tea’ was made after knowing that there were tea plants in Assam (Ukers, 1935). In 1923, a singpho chief of Assam presented a few indigenous tea plants to Robert Bruce and this led to undertaking a search for discovering “wild tea” in Assam. But these so-called ‘wild’ teas discovered in these regions were nothing but abandoned patches of tea left behind by the migratory tea-drinking tribes in course of their movements from one locality to another (Watt and Mann, 1903; due Pasquir, 1924; Kingdouward, 1950). Those patches of tea so discovered were usually found in clusters in regular rows that indicate that those plants were cultivated in the unrecorded past. Thus, these regions of N.E India cannot be considered as a part of the original home of tea. the so-called ‘wild tea’ discovered in these regions which was later designated as var. assamica (Assam tea) has large leaves that are hardly distinguishable from the wild form of tea plants now growing in the evergreen forest of China which seems to indicate that those plants were brought from their original home. More recently, Hutchinson (1973) also reported that tea originated in India and he theorized, without supporting evidence, that in the long distant past, the Chinese entered India and brought back seeds to cultivate in China. Minoru et al. (1972) also disagreed with the fact that tea originated in India as there is no distribution of tea along the road from Kashmir through which Buddhism spread to the east.

Although emphasis has been given in modern times on the analysis of the origin of plant-based on both natural sciences (e.g. external morphology cytogenetics, physiological, ecologic) and human sciences (e.g. linguistic, sociology, history, etc.) little have been done for tea. However, studies based on history and vernaculars and to some extent on morphological features reveal that China is the home place for the tea plant (Minoru et al., 1972). Until a full picture of the origin of the tea plant is made, it will have to be accepted that the probable center of origin of tea is near the source of the Irrawaddy River from where it spread out fan-wise into southeast China, Indo-China and Assam. Thus, the natural home of the tea plant is considered to be within the comparatively small fan-shaped area between Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram along the Burma frontier in the west, through China as far as the Chekiang Province in the east, and from this line generally south through the hills to Burma and Thailand to Vietnam (Harler, 1963). The West-East axis indicated above is about 2400 KM long extending from longitude 95°-120°E. The North-South axis covers about 1920 KM, starting from the northern part of Burma, latitude 29°N passing through Yunnan, Tongkin, Thailand, Laos and on to Annan, reaching latitude 11°N.

From the main centers in South-Eastern Asia, with traditional peasant cultivation, tea has spread into tropical and sub-tropical countries and during the 19th century developed into an important plantation industry.

Next to China, the classic tea country that gave both the beverage and the word ‘tea’ to the world, Japan is considered to introduce tea at an early date. Tea culture in Japan has a long history, dating from about 800 A.D. to when the plant was introduced in China. However, for the first 500 years, tea was regarded as a medicine rather than a beverage, and for over 1000 years only green tea was produced and it was only in 1935 that black tea was produced.

Experimental plantings were made in India between 1818-1834 from seeds originating in China, but with the discovery of the indigenous tea in Assam and Manipur, commercial plantings were made with those local types from 1836 onwards. In the beginning, there was only one large plantation near Dibrugarh (Assam) but within twenty years, it rose to almost 300. The tea production centers also spread to Darjeeling and Cachar (both in 1856), the Terai (in 1862) and Dooars (in 1874) in North East India and in South India, rapid growth took place in Nilgiris, Travancore-Wynaad and the Annamalis within the last one-third of the century. The tea plantation was also introduced into some states of North India like Bihar (in 1862), Kangra valley of Himachal Pradesh (in 1860), Dehradun of U.P. (in 1940).

Tea was introduced into Java in 1690, but commercial production began with seeds from Japan in 1824 and later from China. However, the tea plantations were unremunerative until Assam types were introduced in 1878. Tea was first planted in Sri Lanka in the sixties, but extensive planting began in the 1870s, replacing coffee which was devastated by a leaf disease, Hemileia vestatrix. Tea was first successfully introduced into Malawi in 1886 from Kew and the first estate was planted in 1891. Introduction into East Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century (into Kenya in 1925 and Uganda in 1916) led to commercial production in the 1920s and 1930s in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

Tea was first planted in Russia in 1846, but the successful plantations in Georgia were begun in 1895. Tea has been tried in most tropical and sub-tropical countries, including the new world and there are plantations in Argentina in Brazil and in the Andean region of Chile and Peru. 

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