Diwali festival purchase by upcountry buyers helped increased absorption at Sale No: 42 of the auctions of Coonoor Tea Trade Association at a time export purchase continued to be subdued.

“The container cost is more than the price of the tea. It is a task to impress importers that the landed cost of tea exported from India is higher than in the past. And, the container shortage continues in major ports globally. Export trade after the Covid-19 lockdown is different and difficult compared to earlier days”, an exporter explained to BusinessLine .

Exporters were selective at this week’s auctions. Most of the purchases were below ₹100 a kg.

On the contrary, packeteers and domestic buyers from North India lended support to some grades to build up stocks ahead of Diwali.

This helped the sales volume rise to 19.03 lakh kg — the highest in the last three months.

The average price crashed to ₹84.09 a kg – the lowest since March 2020 when the average price was ₹82.32 a kg.

The higher sale volume helped the overall realisation to rise to ₹16 crore – the highest of the last two months.

Three CTC grades of bought-leaf factory Homedale Tea Factory, auctioned by Global Tea Auctioneers Pvt Ltd (GTAPL), topped the auctions beating the export-oriented orthodox teas from corporates.

Homedale Pekoe CTC Dust grade, auctioned by GTAPL, topped the auctions when Shree Abirami Enterprises bought it for ₹344 a kg. Homedale Red Dust grade and Super Red Dust grade, auctioned by GTAPL, followed at ₹337 and ₹309 respectively.

These were the only grades which crossed ₹300/kg.

In the CTC Leaf auction, Homedale Broken Orange Pekoe grade, auctioned by GTAPL, topped at ₹260 a kg.

Among orthodox teas, Chamraj and Kodanad Speciality Tea bagged ₹256 a kg each, Kodanad ₹251, Glendale ₹232, Kairbetta ₹216 and Nonsuch Orthodox ₹212.

Overall, teas worth ₹5.02 crore remained unsold as there were no takers for about 24 per cent of the offer.

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