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Features

This week Tea Biz travels to Calcutta, India for an in-depth conversation with Harkirat (Harki) Sidhu, Rainforest Alliance India’s Consulting Program Coordinator for Sustainable Landscapes & Livelihoods. Harki is an expert in mechanical tea harvesters. He makes a compelling argument for improving tea quality using labor hours gained on farms that invest in these time-saving machines.

Mechanical Tea Harvesting

By Dan Bolton

Mechanical harvesting gets a bad rap. This is because poorly trained operators using poorly maintained equipment damage bushes, lowering yield and leaf quality. Simple routines such as level trimming in one direction, in a single long sweep over only half the plucking plain produces excellent leaf. Innovations like creating a seasonal calendar to regulate plucking rounds and paying workers for the area they shear instead of by the kilo keep yields high. Smallholders sharing equipment to save time can then use the many hours of labor saved for field maintenance and to complete agricultural chores like pruning, mulching, and weed abatement to deliver leaf of exceptional quality to factories.

According to Rainforest Alliance Consultant Harkirat Sidhu, mechanical harvesting is required today because growers cannot complete plucking rounds frequently enough by hand. “We need mechanical harvesting in addition to hand plucking to prevent overgrowth, not to replace hand plucking,” he says. Read more…

Listen to the review

News

Sri Lanka Abandons Fertilizer Import Ban

By Dan Bolton

Tea growers convinced the Sri Lankan government to abandon import restrictions on agrochemicals imposed in May after demonstrating a marked decline in quality and yield. Plantations Minister Ramesh Pathirana said the reversal comes in time to help growers responsible for producing $1.3 billion in annual exports.
At a press conference in Colombo last week, he told reporters imports of chemical fertilizer would continue until the island was able to produce sufficient organic fertilizer for food and cash crops. Two thirds of Sri Lanka’s farmers support organic agriculture according to a survey by Verité Research but 90% currently use agro-chemicals and 85% anticipated the overnight switch to organic fertilizers would lower yields by an average 47%. Read more…

Kenya’s KTDA Sets a Minimum Price for Auctioned Tea

By Dan Bolton

The Kenya Tea Development Agency last week announced a minimum reserve price of $2.43 per kilo for tea auctioned in Mombasa.

The decision is to stabilize persistently low prices during the past two years at the likely expense of export market share. India is a primary beneficiary.

Azam Monem, director of McLeod Russel India, told reporters “due to Kenyan tea we faced intense competition in worldwide markets. “We are in a better position to increase exports now that our prices are about INRs250 rupees per kilo (approximately $3.35 in US dollars) and Kenyan tea is around INRs200 rupees per kilo (around $2.65 in US dollars), he said.

KTDA said output declined by 14% to 1.25 billion kilos in the 12 months through June, compared with last year’s record output. Overall, Kenya tea exports increased by 19% to 298 million kilos but auction prices averaged only $1.96 per kilo at Mombasa, which auctions teas from several East African countries.

KTDA tea prices fell by 8% during the same period, averaging $2.18 per kilo. Kenya’s export earnings during the past seven months fell to $700 million. In 2020 exports totaled $1.2 billion for the year. The Agency expressed concerns about over-reliance on four export markets that generate 70% of sales of commodity grade teas, pledging to produce more orthodox teas that bring a better price.

Biz Insight – KTDA announced that it is abandoning legal action to prevent enactment of provisions of the 2020 Tea Act. Last winter a group of directors at KTDA factories filed suit to prevent implementation of sections of the act governing special elections. Fifty-five factories at their annual meetings in November will vote on a special resolution to withdraw the cases. The resolution is endorsed by Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya.

AVPA Announces Teas of the World Contest Winners

AVPA’s 4th Annual Teas of the World contest awarded 133 medals this week recognizing teas from 33 countries.

The online ceremony in Paris awards “gastronomic recognition” in two categories of tea with separate juries evaluating camellia sinensis (monovarietal) and “Herbal teas, blends and scented teas.”

Prizes included 10 “Gourmet Or” gold medals and 25 silver and 25 bronze with an additional 73 teas receiving an AVPA certificate of distinction. Three golds were awarded in the herbals and blends category and seven gold medals in the camellia sinensis categories.

Related: A Gastronomic Tea Contest

Taiwan’s Xue Jian Oolong Tea in Miao Li won two golds (two silvers and four diplomas). The first gold medal was for “Alpine Spring” with another for “Le Thé de Madame Hakka.”

Wang Family Tea in Beishan, Taiwan earned a gold for its “Wuyi Charcoal Roasted Oolong” and the Tea Key Company in Nantou, Taiwan earned gold for its “Dong Pian Si Ji Chun.”

Two teas from Darjeeling, India also earned gold medals. “Arya Diamond” distributed by EVS Professionals and Les Jardin de Gaia earned gold for its “Himalayan Secret SFTGFOP1 (Special Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe, Grade 1).”

A South Korean green tea grown on Jeju Island by Wild Orchard also earned gold.

In the Herbals and blends categories “Pure Chamomile” by L’Autre Thé grown in Croatia was awarded a gold medal and Les Jardins Gaia won gold for its “Rose de Damas” tea from Iran.

N. Psyllakis & Co., a family-owned farm in Greece won gold for its “Cretan Mountain Tea” grown in Tofillo, Crete.

• Winners in the Monovarietal Contest (PDF)
• Winners in the Herbal Teas, Blended and Scented Contest (PDF)

— Dan Bolton

• Read more… links indicate the article continues. Learn more… links to additional information from reliable outside sources.

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Features

This week Tea Biz visits London where Kyle Whittington reviews “Puer Tea, Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic” a meticulously researched cultural biography that reveals the intricacies of Pu’er.

… and then to Yunnan, China, where ancient tea forests mark the origin of Pu’er, a tea experiencing a popular resurgence due to the pandemic.

Review: Puer Tea, Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic

By Kyle Whittington | TeaBookClub

Sitting on the academic end of the tea bookshelf, this is a fascinating and thoroughly well researched foray into the complex and multi-faceted world of Pu’er tea. An anthropological study which explores the “cultural biography” of Puer tea, the ethnographic and anthropological research that has gone into this is book is exceptional and really opens the intricacies of Pu’er. And yet, despite being such an academic text it is entirely readable and utterly fascinating. Read the review…

Listen to the review

The Popularity of Puer

By Dan Bolton

The COVID outbreak in China triggered a surge in domestic sales of Pu’er along with teas blended with herbs associated with traditional Chinese medicine. In China tea is viewed as essential to maintain the body’s natural health balance and improve immunity.

Pu’er does not prevent infection by the novel coronavirus, but this fermented tea aids digestion, concentrates polyphenols, and contains statins that lower cholesterol, which is why it is often prescribed to improve heart health. Pu’er also contains a very diverse makeup of bacteria to support gut health, according to medical research cited in the magazine Well+Good.

China primarily grows green tea (accounting for 63.5% of production) but dark tea, a category that includes Pu’er, accounts for 13.5% of total production, far more than black (11%) wulong (9.9%) or white tea (1.3%).

Listen to the report

News

Food Inflation and Tea

By Dan Bolton

As raw materials, energy, and shipping costs rise across a broad swath of food and beverages, including coffee, where prices are up 17% in grocery, packaged tea has avoided a spike. The reason is basic supply and demand. Oversupply of commodity tea is depressing prices while COVID-related expenses drive the price of specialty teas higher. Food inflation is the big unknown. Is this a temporary spike, or are higher prices here to stay? In September, the US Labor Department reported prices increased 5.4%, the most significant jump in prices since January 1991. According to Bloomberg, global food prices are at a decade high, compounded by supply chain disruptions that have sent a United Nations index of food costs up by a third over the past year. Energy costs are rising, and the costs of bringing tea to market are soaring. Read more…

Tea Cargo Woes Worsen

By Dan Bolton

The cost of transporting a 40-foot container of tea from India to Europe or from Vietnam to Los Angeles is now equal to the value of tea it holds.

Freightos FBX reports shipping charges from East Asia to East Coast ports in North America peaked at $20,695 so far this month. Shippers from Asia to West Coast destinations paid an average $17,377 for a 40-foot TEU Oct. 15. The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index is up 464% to an average $4,614 cost per container.

The price of a container traveling from Kolkata to Rotterdam was $9,500 in October. Add the cost of securing COVID limited labor to load and a premium paid for ground transport, and costs easily approach $20,000.

Airfreight is the preferred method for transporting specialty tea. In normal times, using a parcel service adds about $6.50 to the cost of each pound of tea, about 40-cents per ounce. But in recent months, rates on some routes have doubled – and doubled again.

Rates to fly goods from Frankfurt to Hong Kong grew by 2.2 times in the past three months to record high of $3.53 per kilogram, according to the newly launched Freightos Air Index (FAI). Freightos monitors cargo volume for 30 major airlines on its WebCargo platform and tracks cargo prices for 2,000 freight forwarders totaling 40% of global air freight.

FedEx is raising rates by an average of 5.9%, UPS by 4.9%, and DHL Express announced it would increase its rates by 5.9% on Jan. 1. Retailers who typically offer “free shipping” are upping order minimums to $50 and $75, and many are charging $15 to $25 to ship packets that weigh less than 500 grams (one pound). During the pandemic airlines relied on freight to generate a third of revenue (up from 12% pre-pandemic).

Biz Insight – Danish logistics data researcher Sea-Intelligence reports that almost 13% of the world’s cargo shipping capacity is tied up by delays. Schedule reliability in August was at a record low of 33.6%, meaning two-thirds of shipped goods are arriving late, according to the company.

• Related: The Worsening Logistics Situation (STiR)

COVID’s Impact on the North American Tea Market

The initial pandemic-driven surge in tea sales has passed and the North American market has returned to a period of steady growth. The tea market will grow at a projected 3.1% through 2026, according to a report released this week by Research and Markets. Consumer research in the North American Tea Market 2021 report documents the impact of the pandemic and highlights these three trends.

• Healthy hydration is propelling market growth at the expense of fruit juices and carbonated drinks. The herbal tea segment is expected to experience “significant growth” over the coming years as COVID-19 paved the way for products “that are good for health, natural, and act as an immunity booster.” Organic certification was identified as a desirable product attribute.
• Second, the increase in settlement of expatriated populations in the US and especially in Canada is driving the North American market, according to the researchers.
• “The organoleptic versatility associated with tea makes it open to manufacturers to innovate alongside the healthy trends that have been resonating prominently in the North American market,” according to the report. ?

The US is the third-largest tea importer globally with consumption increasing across the infused beverage category (camellia sinensis + botanicals), according to the report. The major growth opportunities hinge on innovation in flavors and convenience, “and the popularity of high-end specialty tea,” writes Research and Markets.

— Dan Bolton

• Read more… links indicate the article continues. Learn more… links to additional information from reliable outside sources.

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Upcoming Events

October 2021
Duyun Maojian International Forum for Tea Lovers | Dunyun, Guizhou, China |
6th Annual Conference for China Tea Import and Export Trade | Oct. 21-22
The co-located events showcase the production of Maojian green tea. China quarantine and travel restrictions apply. Website | Brochure (PDF)

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