STiR coffee and tea magazine

28 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 4, 2021 (August / September) ing takes more time and cost, but the result is a premium tea by traditional standards. The trouble is, today's consumer wants the leafier flavor and assurances that the tea is sustain- able, eco-friendly, certified organic, with a small carbon footprint, and packaged in an environmentally responsible way. No country in modern times has attempted to return to organic cultivation, but Sri Lanka correctly perceives that consumers, especially young tea drinkers, favor this approach. Labor is at the center of the challenge as 70% of Sri Lanka's tea is now produced by the nation's 600,000 tea smallholders. Organic farming is labor-intensive, and while the tea brings a better price, there is much less of it to bring to market. Harkirat Sidhu, consulting program coordinator at Rainfor- est Alliance writes that, "Organic farming is not the absence of agrochemicals. It is a system that uses ecologically based pest controls and biological fertilizers derived largely from animal and plant wastes and nitrogen-fixing cover crops. It looks at all the elements in the whole tea ecosystem and recognizes the contribution of each of these elements." He cited five immediate challenges resulting from the ban. These include increased insect and mite infestation and disease and an increase in weeds that will force growers to significantly increase manual labor, an expense in time, and wages that will exacerbate the shortage of workers required for plucking. Perhaps most critical is that switching to organic fertilizer may adversely affect the quality of Ceylon tea. "Soil nutrition could become a limiting factor as for more than six decades the plants are used to this easily available nutrition," writes Sidhu. There is no "silver bullet" solution in organic agriculture, he explains. "The replacement theory of getting organic nutrients equivalent to the NPK (nitrogen-potassium-phos- phorus) previously applied does not work. It is the whole ecosystem approach that needs to be brought in," he writes. In 2010 Sri Lanka produced 330 million kilos of tea from bushes covering 222,000 hectares. That volume requires 160,000 metric tons of fertilizer per year, a rate of use that continues in 2020 but with 40 million fewer kilos – even though tea now covers 253,000 hectares, writes Jayampathy Molligoda, current tea board chairman. By Dan Bolton Pandemic Reshuffles Top Tea Exporter Rankings Tea on its way overseas. Tea export volumes are down as the pandemic continues to disrupt supply. Global tea exports through the spring months of 2021 had not offset setbacks in 2020 when tea sales from all countries declined to $7.1 billion, a shortfall of -8.6% compared to 2019. China retains its dominance, earning a 28.7% share of tea export value globally in 2020 with more than $2 billion in sales, nearly double Kenya's $1.1 billion export earnings. But overall export volume is down 11.5% year-over-year, according to China Tea Marketing Association (CTMA) statistics. Sri Lanka's tea exports were valued at $712 million, which is down but well ahead of India, which experienced sharp declines through 2020. Hard-hit by the pandemic with an estimated 1.1 million deaths, India's tea industry earned $692 million from tea exports in 2020 and is likely to see a signifi- cantly greater decline in volume in 2021, according to the Tea Board of India. The board estimated Indian exports would decline 15% from the 208 million kilos exported in 2020. January through March, exports declined 13% compared to 2020 and were down by 29% compared to 2019. Total production stands at 46 million kilos through March, compared to 53 million kilos during the same period in 2020. Exports may decline by 30 to 40 million kilos for the year. Poland earned $264.5 million in sales to emerge as one of the top five exporters by value, surpassing Germany, which ranked 6th, and the UK, which ranked 9th according to World's Top Exports. Analyst Daniel Workman writes that among the top exporters, "the fastest growing tea exporters from 2019 to 2020 were The Netherland (up 22%), Japan (up 12.5%), Indonesia (up 4.3%), and Poland, up 3.6% by value." Countries with the greatest decline in tea exports by value include Vietnam (down -43.9%), United Arab Emirates (down -40.9%), the US (down -20.6%), Taiwan (down -19.7%), and Sri Lanka, down -18.3%, writes Workman. "By value, the top five exporters generate more than 67.7% of exports and the 15 top tea exporting countries shipped 85.9% of global exports in 2020," writes Workman. Chinese Tea Exports Last year presented surprisingly good export opportunities for China. The General Administration of Customs reported Chino sold 158,000 metric tons of tea to 71 belt and road countries in 2020. The tea was valued at $882 million. The top five destinations are Morocco, Uzbekistan, Russia, Afghani- stan, and Thailand. Total exports are down in both green and black tea categories during the first months of 2021 compared to spring 2020, according to CTMA. "From January to May of 2021, China's cumulative export volume of tea was 135,700 metric tons, a year-on-year decrease of 5.8%. The export value was $788 million, an increase of 0.71% year-on-year," according to CTMA. Average export prices rose 15% to $6.41 year-on-year in May. The January through May average price was $5.80 per kilo, up 7% com- pared to the same period last year. The European Union and the US tied as top export destinations for Chinese tea at $45 million. Chinese tea accounted for 34% of total US tea imports in May, according to Jason Walker at Firsd Tea, a division of Zhejiang Tea Group, the world's largest green tea exporter. Walker calcu- lated the average price of global tea imports at $3.82 in May vs. $4.38 per kilo average for Chinese tea, "33.6% of all green tea import (volume) was from China, but only 15.6% of value," writes Walker. According to Trading Economics which reports China Customs data exports to Hong Kong ($27 million), Japan ($14 million), and Vietnam ($12 million) round out the top five trading partners. UK tea imports from China, which are no longer counted in the EU, were $7 million in May 2021. by Dan Bolton Tea Report

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