India is the 2nd largest producer of tea in the world, with more than 900,000 tonnes per year. Tea was introduced to India by the British in the nineteenth century, to overcome the monopoly of Chinese production. The first area to be planted was the mountain region surrounding the city of Darjeeling, perched on the Himalayan foothills, in the 1850s. Then came the development of tea cultivation on the plains of Assam. Here, a wild species of tea was found and brought under cultivation. This variety was closely related to the Chinese tea plant, camellia sinensis assamica, which had been imported by the English. It had larger leaves than its Chinese counterpart and flourished best in the plains, whereas the Chinese Camellia preferred altitude. Finally, in the late nineteenth century, the British set up tea plantations in the mountainous region of the southern tip of India, including the famous Nilgiri massif. Nilgiri means "Blue Mountain". Some say this is because of the fog enveloping the mountain, which gives it a blue sheen.