INTRODUCTION

THE CHINESE have used tea as a beverage for over a thousand years  and our own knowledge of tea and tea manufacture is traced to china. The original habitat of the tea plant is the subject of controversy on account of the diversity of types in which it is found. The tea plant is known by various names after the botanists who discovered the different species. It was originally named Camellia Thea and Thea Sinensis by Linnaeus in his "Species Plant arum"(1753). With the passage of time, as many as sixteen other species of the genus Camellia were distinguished and named by botanists. In 1807 the botanist sims used the original name given by  Linnaeus in 1753 to embrace all species of tea, and in accordance with accepted rules for naming plants by which the oldest name is retained, the tea plant is known as Camellia Sinensis or Thea Sinensis (L) Sims, the letter L denoting Linnaeus.

The tea industry from very modest beginnings has now become a major primary in  industry of the world which is highly organized in every detail. from the main centers of  cultivation in china and south East Asia where tea culture has been a village  industry for many centuries, it has now spread into tropical and sub tropical regions of the world. We shall now briefly trace the extension of the  industry to the major tea producing countries of the world.