Where Tea is Grown

The tea plant is indigenous to China, Tibet, and northern India. Over the centuries, it has been successfully cultivated in other parts of the world as well. Today, tea plantations cover about 6 million acres of land – still only about 5% of the acreage used for viticulture. India is the world’s leading producer, even though large-scale tea cultivation in India did not start until the 19th century.  
Growing tea in the US has been tried since the late nineteenth century. Tea gardens were laid out in South Carolina but were not a commercial success. Since the 1990s there has been a revival of US interest in tea growing, with increasing momentum as US interest in tea consumption has developed.

Major tea growing regions of the world are India, China, Sri Lanka, Japan, Kenya, Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam, Argentina, Tanzania, Taiwan, Malawi, and Zimbabwe.

The most renowned teas are from India, Japan, Sri Lanka, China, and Taiwan.