is the birthplace of the Bangladesh tea industry. Historically,
Bengal was the terminus of the
Tea Horse Road connecting the
subcontinent with China's early tea-growing regions in
Yunnan.
Atisa is regarded as one of the earliest Bengali drinkers of tea. Black tea cultivation was introduced in
Bengal and
Assam during the
British Empire, particularly in Assam's
Sylhet district. In 1834, Robert Bruce discovered tea plants in the
Khasi and Jaintia Hills and other hilly areas in the northeast. This led to the Assam Tea Company being established in 1839 and many businessmen were actively involved with this company such as
Haji Mohammed Hashim,
Dwarkanath Tagore and
Mutty Lall Seal. The company was associated with
Calcutta's
Bengal Tea Association. European traders established the first subcontinental
tea gardens in the port city of
Chittagong in 1840, when plantations were set up beside the
Chittagong Club using Chinese tea plants from the Calcutta Botanical Garden. was a very notable pioneer in the native tea industry. In the early twentieth century, many local entrepreneurs also started founding their own companies such as
Syed Abdul Majid,
Nawab Ali Amjad Khan, Muhammad Bakht Majumdar, Ghulam Rabbani, Syed Ali Akbar Khandakar,
Abdur Rasheed Choudhury and Karim Bakhsh. The
Chittagong Tea Auction was established in 1949 by British and Australian traders. British companies such as James Finlay and Duncan Brothers once dominated the industry. ==Industry==