Formation and Expansion of Tea Culture in India : With a Special reference to Bengal

India is considered as one of the native homes of the tea plant. The tea was existed in India from the immemorial time, but due to the lack of knowledge over the plant and its use, tea had not been introduced in Indian culture for quite a long time. Ininitial phase, when the tea was introduced in India, Indians were unresponsive to tea.After a long time, slowly and gradually Indian began to adopt tea as a drink. Today, India is the largest tea producer country in the world as well as consumer. There are so many factors to be India as the largest consumer of tea in a short period. India consumes nearly 80% tea of its production. It is no doubt that foreigners germinated the custom of tea drinking in India. Muslims were open minded, they played vital role to establish the tea culture in India. Muslims accepted tea without any prejudice. Before establishing of tea culture in India, Indian used to take Conji, Betel Nut to welcome their guests. But from the beginning ofthe 20th century, such custom was supplanted by tea. Development of Industry in India, patriotic movement, use of novel laurite, Rabindranath Tagore for advertisement of tea played a vital role to establish tea culture in India. Moreover, the contribution of literature and Indian Cinemas also contributed to form tea culture in India. Although the tea culture in India had started in the 19th century, it experiencedseveral diffi culties on the way of progress. Finally, tea culture developed very rapidly and succeeded to be the national beverage of India