How India came to be the largest tea drinking nation

Amitava Sanyal

Hindustan Times

NEW DELHI, India, April 12 -- Like the swilling spoon in the boiling water, the history of tea closes a circle every now and then. It closed one last year, when China dislodged India as the top producer after a century.

Before that, the turn of the century saw Tata Tea and the Apeejay group turning back the colonial clock by buying out iconic British brands such as Tetley and Typhoo. But this history's rings go back much farther - to the turn of the previous century, when the India was made into the largest tea drinking nation.

It started in 1903, when Curzon set up a Tea Cess Committee. Taxing tea had been a sensitive issue for the colonial British. …