Glistening tea leaves are a ubiquitous sight in upper Assam where large swathes of land are set aside for tea plantations. As a result, tea farming and exports are a booming industry in the State. It’s a significant source of livelihood.

While it is well known that the British were the first to venture into the jungles of Assam to discover tea, the story of the first explorer into these remote forests is fascinating.

In 1765, when the Mughals granted the British the Bengal Diwani (right to collect revenue), Assam was ruled by the 500-year old Ahom dynasty, a lineage that traced its origin to the Yunan province in China. The Ahoms ruled over a vast territory in Assam, one of the few empires to have successfully evaded the onslaught of the Mughals for centuries.

The British, looking to import tea from China, found it to be an expensive proposition, and started exploring other sources. But Assam of the time was an unreachable destination, lying outside the control of both the Mughals and early British India. As Governor General Lord Cornwallis wrote in 1792: