It was started three hundred years ago but has been forced out of existence because the Internet and E-Mail are now more effective. Some auctions will continue in the countries of origin and there will be some private dealings but for the most part it is goodbye to another tradition. The British love their tea. It is the great panacea, a cure for all ills. Then you'll feel much better.
Tea likes a cool climate, sunshine and light rain.
Whole mountainsides were carved into terraces for planting bushes. Roads had to be made to get the tea off the plantations and railways engineered over the most difficult terrain. Tea was first planted commercialy in Sri Lanka in 1867 and the railway from Kandy going nearly up to the hill station of Newara Eliya and on to the terminus at Badulla is a death-defying series of steep gradients as the train hauls itself up out of valleys and back down again, clinging to the mountainside. Leaving from Colombo it climbs steadily then begins to twist and turn through high passes to reach Kandy. After that the gradient gets even steeper as it approaches the mountains covered in tea plantations.