JORHAT, ASSAM
By Pullock Dutta
India Tea Board Closes Factories for Winter
India tea exports are on the rise with gains in both value and volume this year — trends that the Tea Board of India intends preserve by aggressively combatting the typical year-end surge of stale tea.
This year, for the first time, the tea board has ordered the mandatory closing of factories beginning Dec. 10 to prevent the processing of stale leaves.
Once the final autumn pluck concludes in early December, millions of tea branches are pruned and piled high in tea gardens throughout north-eastern India. Every year unscrupulous factory owners conspire with tea growers to process these waste cuttings into thousands of metric tons of foul-tasting tea.
Tea processed from dry or decomposing leaves tastes terrible but can be blended with better quality cut, tear, curl (CTC) to increase volume. Adding tea dust and colorant conceals the nature of this tea until cupped.
Bidyananda Barkakoty, adviser to the North Eastern Tea Association (NETA), explains that “tea fibre, which should be declared tea waste, is used by some factories to remanufacture CTC, giving it a black grainy look. Some use color adulterants.”
“These teas are not fit for human consumption. Moreover, these teas create an oversupply situation which impacts the price of new season teas,” he said.
While tonnage this year is estimated at 255 million kilos, up from 251 mkg in calendar 2017, prices per kilo remain flat at $2.70 per kilo (INRs197). Closing factories during the winter when there is no fresh leaf available should improve overall quality.
The order requires gardens in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, and Manipur to cease plucking by Dec. 10. Gardens in West Bengal, Bihar, Sikkim, Himachal, and Uttarakhand must complete their harvest by December 15. In all these areas processing operations must cease until spring. Tea harvested in Southern India, which does not experience the same seasonal cycle, will continue to be harvested.
Growers welcomed this move as a positive step to rein in the unscrupulous tea manufacturers.
Violators face fines and more severe restrictions could follow.
In announcing the new policy tea board chairman P.K. Bezboruah said, “It’s time we take stern measures to produce quality tea.” The decision “will help reduce substandard teas produced by reprocessing in the month of December” and it sends a clear message that India is serious about improving its reputation for quality, he said.
Currently only 3% of tea is harvested in December, usually early in the month. The ban will hardly impact gardens already producing good quality tea.