Organic tea production and market: Global Scenario

Ghosh Hajra, N. 2011. Organic tea production and market: Global Scenario. Invited paper.The 17th IFOAM Organic World Congress, Korea, 26-27 Sept. 2011.

Abstract

• The organic tea was introduced to the world market in the mid-1980s. Since then, certain pockets in the Eastern Himalayas, the Western Ghats of India, mainly in up country of Sri Lanka and China have been converted to organic processes. There are also organic tea fields in Japan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Tanzania and Turkey as well. The organic tea production in Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Argentina, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea are very marginal and do not have significance influence on the world market. Organic way of tea production could be explained by a number of factors viz. awareness of pesticide residue and presence of heavy metals in conventional teas, and other potential health hazards connected with an intensive system of tea production. Over the past decades, its consumption has grown globally by more than 10% year-1. Still the organic tea sector is a very small part of the tea industry when compared to the black tea. But it has a niche market. India leads the world in organic black tea output and Sri Lanka is quite strong. Organic green tea is mainly exported from China. The domestic market for organic tea does not yet exist in India and Sri Lanka. But there is strong domestic market for organic green tea in China. In the present paper, the development of organic tea, cultivation practices, trends of production after conversion, global market and trade are discussed.

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