• Indian Tea Association and Goodricke Group Each Name New Heads | Nilgiris’ INDCOServe Will Convert Kattabettu Factory into Tea Tourism Hub

    By Aravinda Anantharaman | Managing Editor

    India Tea News for the week ending 15 March 2024
    India Tea News | March 15, 2024
    Subscribe Free
    KATTABETTU INDCO TEA FACTORY, KATTABETTU. Established in the year 1976
    Kattabettu INDCO Tea Factory, established in 1976, was recently refurbished.

    ITA & Goodricke Group Announce Appointments

    The Goodricke Group has appointed Arun Narain Singh as the Managing Director and CEO, effective March 6, 2024. This appointment follows the resignation of Atul Asthana last month. Mr Singh has held this position and most recently has been Founder Trustee of Tea Vision, an industry think tank building a common platform for multiple stakeholders in the tea industry and to be the industry’s voice.

    The National Committee of the Indian Tea Association (ITA), meeting on March 12, announced the appointment of Hemant Bangur of Shri Vasupradha Plantations as Chairman, Suneel Singh Sikand, CEO of Rossell Tea, as Vice Chairman, and Atul Rastogi, Director of Luxmi Tea, as Additional Vice Chairman of the Association. Founded in 1881, the Indian Tea Association, headquartered in Kolkata, is India’s oldest organization of tea producers.

    INDCO in the Nilgiris Gets a Tourism Boost

    Tea tourism comes into focus in the south as well. In the Nilgiris, INDCOServe tea cooperative is set to receive Rs 7.4 crore (approx USD 900,000) to convert its Kattabettu tea factory into a tea tourism hub under the Tamil Nadu Innovation Initiatives plan. The funds will be used to create a living tea museum that will house various tea plants and allow visitors to see how tea is made and taste different teas. Both tea and tourism are essential to the economy of the Nilgiris, and this move is seen as a boost to that. INDCOServe is the largest tea cooperative in the country, with 30,000 small farmer members and 16 factories in the Nilgiris.

    Powered by RedCircle

    •

    Aravinda Anantharaman

    •

    ,
    , , , , , ,

  • Bihar Tea Gets Trademark | Microsoft’s Bill Gates Unwittingly Promotes Chai and Chaiwala | Muskan Khanna Earns a Patent for Her Nilgiri Bamboo Tea

    By Aravinda Anantharaman | Managing Editor

    India Tea News for the week ending 8 March, 2024
    India Tea News | March 8, 2024
    Subscribe Free
    Courtesy: Amul India

    Bihar Tea Moves Closer to the Mainstream

    Bihar, a state that borders Bengal, has been designated as a non-traditional tea area since 1998 and has just been awarded a trademark by the Indian government. The trademark provides for better protection for goods and services.

    Bihar today has 56,000 hectares – mainly in the Kishanganj district – in tea cultivation and produces over 45,000 metric tons of raw tea leaves annually. In 2020, tea was identified as a focus area under the Bihar Agri Investment Policy (2020). Under the Bihar Tea Development Scheme (2023), tea producers are eligible for a 50-90% subsidy on tea cultivation. The state is keen to expand the area under tea farming. Leading the tea movement here is Doke Tea by Rajiv Lochan, who has been producing artisanal tea for the last decade.

    Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates Unwittingly Promotes Chai

    Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was in India last week and introduced his trip with a video on chai! Now famous as “One Chai Please,” it shows Gates walking up to a chaiwala and commenting that innovation abounds here, even in how chai is made. This video on Gates’ Instagram handle has garnered 7.6 million likes, besides making the chaiwala, Sunil Patel, who goes by the name Dolly Chaiwala, famous overnight.

    Watch the video here.

    Tea Studio Gets Patent for its Nilgiri Bamboo

    Muskan Khanna, of the boutique Tea Studio in the Nilgiris, won the patent for her tea, Nilgiri Bamboo, described as a green tea made using only the internode between the terminal bud and the first leaf of a tea shoot. The patent comes after five years of work. Khanna runs The Tea Studio in the Nilgiris as a women-only company producing bespoke specialty tea. In a social media post, Muskan’s father, tea veteran Indi Khanna, said that this patent is second in tea making, following the patent for the Rotorvane in the 1960s granted to the TRI.

    Powered by RedCircle

    •

    Aravinda Anantharaman

    •

    ,
    , , , , , , , ,

  • Tata Tea Under Scrutiny | India Mandates Sale of All Tea Dust at Auction | Atul Asthana Resigns as MD and CEO of the Goodricke Group

    By Aravinda Anantharaman | Managing Editor

    India Tea News for the week ending 1 Mar 2024

    Powered by RedCircle

    Subscribe Free
    India requires all dust grades to be sold at auction
    India requires all dust grades and 50% of the leaf and broken leaf teas to be sold at auction

    Tata Tea Under Scrutiny Again

    Shantha Chhetri, a former parliamentarian from Kurseong, has written to the offices of the Prime Minister of India and the Commerce Minister, raising concerns about Tata Consumer Products’ consumer packs. She said the company blends its tea with those from Nepal, which is unsafe for consumption and does not meet safety standards. She has urged the food safety regulator, FSSAI, and the Tea Board to test their tea for MRL levels of banned pesticides. The company responded that they do not import directly from Nepal. And that any Nepalese tea in blends is sourced from Indian traders. Tata explained that their teas are rigorously tested within the company and are deemed safe. In 2021, Tata Tea and Darjeeling were at loggerheads when the Tea Board prohibited blending imported teas with GI-protected Darjeeling, Assam, Kangra, and Nilgiri teas. A year later, this ban was lifted. The Telegraph

    Indian Government Requires 100% of Dust to be Sold at Auction

    The amendment of the Tea (Marketing) Control Order, 2003, will come into force from 1st April 2024. One of the directives is that 50% compulsory sale of tea and 100% sale of dust grades must be sold through public auctions starting 1st April. This order is targeted at estates in North India, including Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal. Dust grades account for 25% of Assam and West Bengal tea production. Retail prices for CTC dust are currently Rs 160 to Rs 190 per kilogram (IndiaMART). The move is thought to support greater compliance of tea towards boosting exports. The mandate does not apply to many small-volume mini-tea factories. Industry stakeholders are divided in their opinion on this new move.

    Atul Asthana, MD, Goodricke Group Resigns

    Atul Asthana, Managing Director and CEO of The Goodricke Group Ltd., has resigned after 39 years with the company. The Goodricke Group includes 18 storied gardens, including Thurbo, Badamtam, Barnesbeg, Nonaipara, and Hope across Darjeeling, Assam, and the Dooars. Asthana led the company to years of profitability, retaining its position as a top producer in the tea market. Asthana also actively supports the tea industry and is currently Chairman of the Indian Tea Association. The decision to resign, he has said, was for personal reasons.


    Powered by RedCircle

    •

    Aravinda Anantharaman

    •

    ,
    , , , , , , , , ,

  • India Tea News: State Budgets Include Tea Worker Housing Funds | Iran Remains a Lost Market for Indian Tea | New Study Reveals New Traits in the Assamica Plant

    By Aravinda Anantharaman | Managing Editor

    India Tea News for the week ending Feb 24, 2024
    India Tea News | Aravinda Anantharaman
    Subscribe Free
    Budget allocates financing for worker houses
    Assam budget allocates financing for tea worker housing

    Budget Season and Aid for Tea

    As State Governments announce their budget for the upcoming financial year, the tea industry has been waiting for news on its impact. So far, the Tamil Nadu government has announced an incentive of Rs 2 per kilo to members of the state-owned INDCO cooperative in the Nilgiris. This benefits about 27,000 small tea farmers attached to the INDCO factories. In Assam, 130,000 houses were to be constructed as per last year’s budget. This year, 10% of the houses are earmarked for tea garden workers. Additionally, funds will be earmarked towards payments of electricity bills in arrears in the tea communities. In West Bengal, the finance minister said 2,500 acres of unused land in tea gardens had been recovered and land rights granted to 23,000 workers in the Dooars. The housing scheme here continued to be in focus, as land rights and funds for house construction were included. Five tourism projects on four tea estates in the region have also been approved.

    Iran Turns to Sri Lanka for Tea

    The Hindu Businessline reported that a barter agreement between Iran and Sri Lanka will mean India will continue to lose in this market. In 2023, India’s tea shipment to Iran decreased from 54.45 mn kilos (2019) to 6 million (2023). Iran and Sri Lanka have entered a barter to settle the latter’s oil debt of $250 million for fuel purchases made in 2012. According to the agreement, Sri Lanka will supply tea worth $5 million monthly for 48 months, ending in September 2027.

    Study on Assam Tea

    A study published in the Journal of Plant Beverage Research reveals new Camellia sinensis assamica varietal traits. Researchers from India and China who have worked on this study using 150 SNP markers and population genetics tools to conclude that Assam tea is unique. Researchers identified five distinct genetic populations independently domesticated from a western cluster of wild tea trees rather than introduced from a single origin. The varietal grown in Assam differs from the eastern cluster grown in Yunnan. This new understanding presents new possibilities for cultivating new hybrids bred from Assam tea.

    Powered by RedCircle

    •

    Aravinda Anantharaman

    •

    ,
    , , , , , ,
Verified by MonsterInsights