First, some Dutch man wrote about a plant which was growing in the jungles of India. In his notes he mentions that the Indians ate the leaves of the plant as a vegetable with garlic and oil. They also boiled the leaves and make a brew of them. 200 years later a British botanist named Joseph Banks reports to the company that he works for - “British East India Company”, that the climate in particular parts of India is ideal for tea growing. Not aware of the fact that India is homeland of tea he suggested to transplant bushes from China. His idea was ignored. 
In 1823 the two brothers Robert and Charles Bruce confirmed that the tea plant is indeed native to India. They sent seeds to the Botanical Gardens in Calcutta. Again nobody seemed to paid attention. The reason is that at this time their employer “East India Company” had a monopoly on the trading with tea from China. However very soon the company lost their monopoly and understood that should start to import tea from other places but China. They woke up to the fact that India can offer the alternative. The company set up a committee and gave the two brothers a task. They had to collect 80 000 seeds from China and to import them in India. Obviously the company still wasn't fully convinced that tea is native to India. The seeds was brought to Botanical Gardens in Calcutta and after that were transplant to a specially prepared tea gardens. Although Bruce had recruited two tea makers from China the plants struggled to survive. In the same time the native plant flourished. The British saw that and decided to send a small example of the new tea in England. The feedback was very positive. Some buyers even said it's “excellent”.
Today the Indian tea is the most consumed in the world. India is also the biggest producer of tea in the world with approximately 850 000 tons per year. Popular Indian types of tea are Assam tea and Darjeeling tea.
