There is a significant drop of 2.80 lakh kg in the volume coming up for Sale No: 3 of the auctions of Coonoor Tea Trade Association to be held on Thursday and Friday over the offer of last week.

Harsh winter conditions including frost attack in many low-lying areas have reduced the harvest of green leaf and hence the supply of the manufactured black tea. Besides, in the fortnight gone by, small growers and workers enjoyed prolonged holiday due to Hethaiamman festival on different days in different villages, the most popular festival of Badaga, the predominant community in The Nilgiris.

Consequently, only 16.12 lakh kg is coming up for sale this week against 18.92 lakh kg last week. This is the lowest volume in the past many weeks.

Of the 16.12 lakh kg, as much as 14.58 lakh kg belongs to CTC variety and only 1.54 lakh kg, orthodox variety. The proportion of orthodox teas continues to be low in both leaf and dust grades. In the leaf counter, only 1.02 lakh kg belongs to orthodox while 9.27 lakh kg, CTC. Among the dusts, only 52,000 kg belongs to orthodox while 5.31 lakh kg, CTC. In all, 10.29 lakh kg belongs to Leaf grades and 5.83 lakh kg, Dust grades.

The Coonoor-Based small-scale factory Homedale Estate’s CTC Broken Orange Pekoe Leaf grade, auctioned by Global Tea Brokers, topped the entire auctions last week when Shyam Vittal and Co bought it for ₹265 a kg beating even the orthodox teas of corporates. Homedale Estate’s Leaf Broken Pekoe, auctioned by Global Tea Brokers, fetched ₹244. In the CTC Dust tea auction, three grades of Homedale Estate, auctioned by Global Tea Brokers, topped at ₹255, ₹253 and ₹248 each.

Quotations with the brokers indicated ₹84-90 a kg for plain Leaf grades and ₹120-130 for the best grades. For plain Dust grades, they ranged ₹82-88 and for the best grades, ₹122-130.

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