The Hindu Business Line : Tea Board worried over fall in leaf quality

In the latest edition of the Tea News, which is published jointly with the UPASI Krishi Vigyan Kendra, it has said that this follows the emergence of a small gap in the price of quality and ordinary tea leaves.

The bulletin said in the last two years, quality tea leaves fetched a premium of Rs 3-4 a kg over ordinary ones. So, small growers showed keen interest to harvest quality leaves. In the last few weeks, the price difference between ordinary and quality tea leaves is only Re 1 to Rs 2. In some areas, even the ordinary leaves fetch Rs 10 a kg. So, some growers who had been harvesting quality leaves were frustrated and are harvesting ordinary leaves, it said.

Advising the growers not to do this, the bulletin pointed out that the high price of the recent past was due to the slump in global supplies arising from the floods of Assam and the drought in Kenya. This pushed up the prices of all types of teas and the Nilgiris benefited. This trend would get reversed once the production evens out.

Tea growers had to realise the temporary nature of the current push-up in the prices and stick to quality plucking standards for sustenance, it said.

It has listed 48 factories in the bought leaf sector of the Nilgiris which have procured a price higher than the district average of Rs 39.55 per kg between January and September. Only factories which have produced more than 10,000 kg of quality teas have been taken into account for the survey.

Darmona Estate tops the list with a price of Rs 75.22 per kg selling 46,233 kg.

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