Copy of Papers Received from India Relating to the Measures Adopted for Introducing the Cultivation of the Tea Plant Within the British Possessions in India.

First edition, covering material submitted by East India Company representatives between 1834 and 1838 - a crucial period during which Britain laid the foundations of its tea empire in Assam. The splendid maps incorporate the findings of explorers such as Captain Francis Jenkins and the observations of tea-growing made in China by the Macartney and Amherst embassies. The documents concern the key actors in the growth of Britain's formal tea empire, including Jenkins, the powerful Bengal civil servant William Hay Macnaghten, and the members of the Tea Committee established by Governor William Bentinck in 1834. Pages 36-37 carry the text of the committee's momentous 24 December 1834 report announcing that the tea plant was indigenous to Assam: "We have no hesitation in declaring this discovery. to be by far the most important and valuable that has ever been made on matters connected with the agricultural or commercial resources of this empire." Five years later, the first twelve chests of Assam-grown tea were auctioned in London to great fanfare. Copies are held at the British Library, Linnaean Society, Calke Abbey, UCLA, National Agricultural Library, Institut de France, and National Library of Australia. Folio (331 x 215 mm). With 5 lithographed plates (3 leaves of explanatory letterpress), 6 folding maps (3 with hand-colouring), illustrations and tables in text. Twentieth-century dark blue buckram, spine lettered in gilt, original blue printed wrappers bound in. Ex-Reading University Library, with its bookplates (including on front cover), index card holder, and other markings and stamps on endpapers; a little old underlining in text. Light spotting internally, maps in well-preserved condition and without stamps: very good.…