The offer for Sale No. 31 of Coonoor Tea Trade Association to be held on Thursday and Friday has dropped to 17.29 lakh kg from the year’s highest volume of 24.10 lakh kg offered last week.

In this, teas remaining unsold in the previous auctions account for 3.05 lakh kg leaving fresh arrival at 14.24 lakh kg.

Of this, 12.30 lakh kg belongs to the leaf grades and 4.99 lakh kg belongs to the dust grades. As much as 16.16 lakh kg belongs to the CTC variety and only 1.13 lakh kg to orthodox variety. The proportion of orthodox teas continues to be low in both the leaf and dust grades. In the leaf counter, only 70,000 kg belongs to orthodox while 11.60 lakh kg belongs to CTC. Among the dusts, only 43,000 kg belongs to orthodox while 4.56 lakh kg to CTC.

In the leaf auction last week, among corporate buyers, Hindustan Unilever Ltd bought brighter liquoring varieties. Tata Global Beverages Ltd was fairly active on good medium sorts. Duncans Tea Ltd did not operate. In the dust auction, HUL was fairly active on good medium varieties. Tata Global and Duncans Tea did not operate. Indcoserve was active on good medium smaller grades. There was good demand for brighter liquoring teas from upcountry buyers. Overall, internal buyers were less active. Exporters chose mostly plainer grades.