BUT while private enterprises languished, Government steadily persevered. It retained a portion of its Assam gardens in its own hands until 1849, when the Assam Company began to emerge from their difficulties. In 1856, the tea-plant was discovered wild in the District of Cachar in the Barak valley,* and European capital was at once directed to that quarter. At about the same time, tea-planting was introduced into the neighbourhood of the Himalayan sanitarium of Darjeeling.*
The success of these undertakings engendered a wild spirit of speculation in tea companies, both in India and at home, which reached its climax in 1865. The industry recovered but slowly from the effects of the disastrous crisis, and did not again reach a stable position until 1869. Since that date, it has rapidly but steadily progressed, and has been ever opening new fields of enterprise. There is no reason to suppose that all the suitable localities have yet been tried; and we may look forward to the day when India shall not only rival, but supersede, China in her staple product.*
abridged
* Cachar is a district in western Assam.
* Darjeeling is a city in the northernmost part of West Bengal, just north of Siliguri in the slim corridor that leads across the top of Bangladesh to Assam. A sanitarium for invalid servants of the East India Company was founded there in 1835, and it became the summer capital of the Bengal Presidency in 1864. The town’s growth was driven rapidly by the tea industry, railways and numerous educational establishments.
* For a simple graphic of where the UK gets its tea today, see Where Britain’s tea comes from, mapped from indy100/The Independent. Most of our black tea comes from Kenya, with India in second place.