Turkey's tea production is under pressure this year as high temperatures and irregular rainfall dry up fields and depress yields in the four northern provinces bordering the Black Sea, where most of the nation's tea is grown.
“When we look back five years, we see a decline in tea farming yield ranging from 18 to 20%,” Mehmet Erdogan, the head of Turkey's Rize Commodity Exchange, told the Hurriyet Daily News, an Istanbul-based newspaper.
The four provinces — Rize, Trabzon, Artvin, and Giresun — harvested 860,00 metric tons of raw leaf in 2021, but their 2022 crop fell to 583,000 metric tons. The crop in 2023 has yielded only 520,000 metric tons of raw leaf as the third harvest concludes.
Erdogan said that temperatures in Rize reached daily peaks at or above 37o C (98o Fahrenheit) for 20 days this summer. “The tea plant is not prepared for this. Extended periods of no rain and high temperatures have caused the plant to focus more on self-preservation than yielding a crop.”
“The Black Sea is positioned among the regions most susceptible to the repercussions of climate change. By 2040, evaporation is projected to surpass precipitation," according to Professor Mikdat Kadıoğlu, the head of Istanbul Technical University’s (ITU) Meteorological Engineering Department and director of the Disaster Management Institute and Climate Change Application and Research Center. His comments were reported in Hurriyet Daily News.
Turkey is the world's 5th largest producer of tea, but very high domestic consumption leaves little for export. Turkey's tea market was valued at $3.1 billion in 2023, according to Statista market research. Turkish tea drinkers annually consume an average of 2.91 kilos per person, each spending $36.21 on tea, according to Statista Market Insights.