Which one of the following tribes from India's North-East had the earliest known association with cultivation and production of tea ?

The Singpho tribe of Upper Assam and Arunachal Pradesh is credited with the earliest known association with tea cultivation in India. Long before the British established commercial plantations, the Singphos grew wild tea and consumed it for its medicinal properties, a beverage they called 'Phalap'.

• In 1823, Robert Bruce, a British official and adventurer, was introduced to the indigenous tea plant by the Singpho Chief, Bessa Gaum.
• The Singphos processed tea by plucking wild leaves, sun-drying them, and then roasting them in organic pans before stuffing them into bamboo tubes for aging.
• This discovery by Robert Bruce, and later his brother Charles Bruce, challenged the Chinese monopoly on tea and led to the establishment of the first commercial tea gardens in Assam by the British East India Company.