Empire of Tea

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Sathnam Sanghera tells the story of our national drink and its imperial past.

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Empire of Tea: 5. Innovation, Espionage and Propaganda

5. Innovation, Espionage and Propaganda

BBC Radio 4 - Empire of Tea, 5. Innovation, Espionage and Propaganda

How the introduction of tea plantations to India changed the trade forever.

Sathnam Sanghera discovers how the tea industry changed forever when plantations were introduced to India.

Until 1833 the tea drunk in Britain had come from China, imported by the East India Company. But then the company lost its monopoly on Chinese tea. Its response was to attempt to grow its own in British India. The only snag was it didn’t know how to. So the botanist Robert Fortune was sent on an undercover mission to China.
His work, combined with some surprising discoveries of tea closer to home, and mass marketing and propaganda, helped develop India’s huge tea industry in places like Assam and Darjeeling.
At Kew Gardens, Mark Nesbitt and Aurora Prehn tell Sathnam Sanghera about how this shift from China to India changed the international tea trade forever.

Produced by Paul Martin for BBC Audio Wales

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Empire of Tea

5. Innovation, Espionage and Propaganda

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