Tea production drops 4 per cent in April

Kolkata: Amidst good news for Indian tea growers that India is heading for higher tea production in 2019, going by the trend in the first quarter (which reversed the earlier falling trend), India's tea production in April again fell 4 per cent from a year earlier to 84.42 million kg, thanks to lower plucking in the north-eastern state of Assam, one of the top tea growing regions.

As per Tea Board's official statistics, India's tea production in March rose to 74.59 million kg (mkg) from 61.04 mkg in March 2018, which is an increase of 13.55 mkg or 22.20 per cent. From January to March, the cumulative production of tea in the country rose to 103.61 mkg from 92.20 mkg, marking a gain of 11.41 mkg or 12.38 per cent. Considering the first four months of 2019, India produced 188.03 million kg of tea, up 4.3 per cent from a year ago because of higher production in March, the State-run Tea Board said on Monday. Interestingly, tea production from the North in Q1 rose to 64.13 mkg from 53.86 mkg in the same quarter last year, posting a gain of 10.27 mkg or 19.07 per cent.

On the exports front, India, the world's second-biggest tea producer, exports its CTC (crush-tear-curl) grade mainly to Egypt, Pakistan and the United Kingdom, with the orthodox variety exported to Iraq, Iran and Russia.