China's Tea Industry

China grows more tea than any other country by a wide margin and drinks nearly all of it itself, the reverse of the plantation-export model that built India's, Kenya's, and Sri Lanka's crops. How a single state trading monopoly gave way to more than a million small growers with no majority brand, why the country runs on wholesale markets instead of public auctions, and why its fastest-growing tea business now sells the leaf as a drink rather than a commodity.