STiR coffee and tea magazine

STiR coffee and tea 43 K L O T H & K Ö H N K E N T E E H A N D E L G M B H K O N S U L - S M I D T - S T R A S S E 8 j SPEICHER 1 - D -282 17 BREMEN FON + 4 9 - 4 2 1 - 3 4 8 5 2 6 4 FAX + 4 9 - 4 2 1 - 3 4 7 7 7 2 0 W W W . K K T E E . D E M A I L @ K K T E E . D E IT SUITS ALL MERCHANTS TO TRADE FAIR AND QUALI-TEA ! PAKISTAN ARABIAN SEA NEPAL DELHI Tea Kangra Nilgiris Tamilnadu Karnataka Maharashtra Rajasthan Punjab Haryana Uttaranchal Uttar Pradesh Bihar Jharkhand Orissa Chhattisgarh Madhya Pradesh Jammu & Kashmir Himachal Pradesh Gu Jarat Andhra Pradesh Kerala TEA Producing typically less than a hectare each. When India gained independence from the British in 1947, UK buyers no longer purchased huge quantities of Indian tea. In its quest to find new markets, the In- dian government established trade links with the USSR, whose buyers demanded enormous amounts of low-quality bulk CTC and orthodox broken grades, but, happily for India, at a time when favor- able exchange rates meant good prof- its. So, under the Crop Diversification Program in the 1980s, more and more smallholders converted from vegetables to tea, and the tea market in Southern In- dia boomed. However, the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc in 1991 coincided with generally weaker global markets, and so the demand for Southern Indian teas re- duced alarmingly, and Nilgiri smallholder farmers have struggled ever since. Today, just as the USSR once bought vast quantities of low-grade black Nilgiri teas, buyers mainly from Russia and Iran, but also from India and other countries including Pakistan, still demand the same type of bulk teas. And, like the producers of the 1990s, as long as they can sell all the tea they make – even if they fetch low prices – there is lit- tle reason to improve quality. Prices stay low, smallholders are paid very little for their fresh leaf and leaf quality remains low, perpetuating a vicious circle. And the problem of poor quality teas has been compounded by a severe shortage of labor in the region as more and more people turn away from agricultural work and look for jobs in the cities. Tea is therefore harvested by machine, often when new shoots have grown too long and untidy, and so tea quality remains poor. With low prices for green leaf, many of the smallholders have now switched to growing vegetables, such as carrots, beet- root, and turnips, which fetch much better prices. And while some convert to different crops, others are selling off their land to real estate owners (a market that is currently booming as the wealthy invest in holiday villas, apartments, and condos in the cool hills of Kerala and Tamil Nadu). As a result the region has lost around 3,300 acres of tea estates and approximately 24,0000 acres of small tea gardens in the past ten years. Halting oxidation prior to processing leaves into green tea Nilgiri tea growing region Copyright Compare Infobase Pvt.Ltd. 2004-05

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