History of Bangladesh Tea Industry dates back to 1840 when a pioneer tea garden was established on the slopes of the hills in Chittagong where the Chittagong Club now stands. First commercial tea garden was established in 1857 at Mulnichera in Sylhet. During the partition in 1947, Bangladesh (the then East Pakistan) owned 103 tea estates, covering 26,734 hectares of tea plantation with annual production of 18.36 M.Kg. with an yield of about 639 Kg. per ha. Home consumption was around 13.64 M. Kg. upto 1955.
During liberation war in 1971, our tea industry suffered colossal damages which resulted in poor management, high vacancies, insufficient inputs, dilapidated factory machinery, inadequate maintenance etc. leading to lower yield and poor quality of tea. But the industry soon got a big push on behalf of the government through a massive development program (BTRP-1980-92) with the financial and technical assistance of the British ODA and EEC and production increased to 65.84 million kg. with per/ha. yield of 1255kg. in 2013.