In 1848, the British East India Company gave the botanist Robert Fortune a mission: smuggle live tea bushes out of China against the emperor’s strict edicts and plant them in the Himalayan foothills of West Bengal, to propagate a new tea industry under British control.

The heist took years. The plants struggled to flourish in Indian soil, 6,000 feet above sea level. But by the close of the 19th century, Darjeeling plantations were growing some of the greatest teas in the world: vibrant brews that embodied a meadow’s worth of fruits and flowers, with a refined airiness that stood in stark contrast to India’s brawny lowland teas. Darjeeling quickly earned the nickname “Champagne of teas,” and its fame grew in the wake of the British colonial retreat.