Portugal imported tea from India way before Macau. That was the whole thing of the sea route to India...
Tea was imported by the Portuguese from China and became popular in Europe after that. The British then started producing tea massively in India to obtain it at a lower price.
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tea
"The history of tea is long and complex, spreading across multiple cultures over the span of thousands of years. Tea likely originated in southwest China during the Shang dynasty as a medicinal drink.[1] An early credible record of tea drinking dates to the 3rd century AD, in a medical text written by Hua Tuo.[2] Tea was first introduced to Portuguese priests and merchants in China during the 16th century.[3] Drinking tea became popular in Britain during the 17th century. The British introduced tea production, as well as tea consumption, to India, in order to compete with the China monopoly on tea.[4]"
Visiting Mindanao island, in the Philippines in 1686, the Englishman William Dampier observed the following:
"...but the nutmegs this island produces are fair and large, yet they have no great store of them, being unwilling to propagate them or the cloves, for fear that should invite the Dutch to visit them and bring them into subjection as they have done the rest of the neighbouring islands where they grow. For the Dutch, being seated among the Spice Islands, have monopolised all the trade into their own hands and will not suffer any of the natives to dispose of it but to themselves alone. Nay, they are so careful to preserve it in their own hands that they will not suffer the spice to grow in the uninhabited islands, but send soldiers to cut the trees down. Captain Rofy told me that while he lived with the Dutch he was sent with other men to cut down the spice-trees; and that he himself did at several times cut down 7 or 800 trees. Yet although the Dutch take such care to destroy them there are many uninhabited islands that have great plenty of spice-trees, as I have been informed by Dutchmen that have been there, particularly by a captain of a Dutch ship that I met with at Achin who told me that near the island Banda there is an island where the cloves, falling from the trees, do lie and rot on the ground, and they are at the time when the fruit falls 3 or 4 inches thick under the trees. He and some others told me that it would not be a hard matter for an English vessel to purchase a ship's cargo of spice of the natives of some of these Spice Islands."[1]
Whether the trees were truly native to this island, or brought there from elsewhere, is probably not known.
[1] A New Voyage Around the World, William Dampier, 1697, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0500461h.html
Was there another source in India which the Portuguese had earlier access to? My initial cursory investigation via Wikipedia seems to indicate China as the initial source.[2] I'd be really interested, from an historical point of view, if this wasn't the case.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3081255-for-all-the-tea-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tea#Portugal_and_It...
In 1660 the British monarchy was restored. Charles and Catherine then introduced the custom of tea drinking to the British court.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_England
A pair of Gauls and a Breton (by pure coincidence) brought tea to England.
It's all documented in history books such as this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_in_Britain
:)
The main impetus for the English to grow tea in India, was that it was costing too much to buy from the single monopolistic source, China. Basically, the Honourable Company was trading opium for tea. More money could be made, meeting English demand for tea, by producing it on Company controlled land.
The question is, where did Catherine of Braganza source her tea from? India, as suggested by the grandparent comment, or China.