The History of Tea (Part 17)

Processing tea leaves was never an intuitive process. That's one reason it took so long for others to figure out how to do it. But as it was with silk, once you saw how it was done, it wasn't a terribly difficult process to master and even improve upon. In this Part 17 episode, we see how Robert Fortune gathered the tea seeds, plants, tools, and experts and got them to the Indian highlands. There, a British dream team of botanists and horticulturalists take over the job begun by Robert Fortune. Their hard work helped to launch the tea industry in India. We also look at James Taylor's efforts to plant tea in Ceylon and how his business-savvy partner in this venture brought tea to the world. This partner was Thomas J. Lipton, the one who brought us the ubiquitous Lipton Tea. What a character he was!