Tea Industry in India

Tea leaves Tea isn’t simply tea in India but it is like a staple beverage here and a day without it is impossible and incomplete. Indians prefer their steaming cup of tea because for them it acts as an energy booster and is simply indispensable. This popular beverage has a lot of health benefits too as its antioxidants help to eliminate toxins and free radicals from the blood.

Originally tea is indigenous to the Eastern and Northern parts of India, but the tea industry has expanded and grown tremendously over the years, making India the largest grower and producer of tea in the world. The tea production in India was 979,000 tonnes as of 2009. In terms of consumption, export and production of tea, India is the world leader. It accounts for 31% of the global production of tea. India has retained its leadership over the tea industry for the last 150 years. The total turnover of this industry is roughly Rs.10, 000 crores. Since 1947, the tea production in India has increased by 250% and the land are used for production has increased by 40%.

Even the export sector of India has experienced an increase in the export of this commodity. The total net foreign exchange in India is roughly Rs.1847 crores per annum. The tea industry in India is labor intensive, meaning it depends heavily on human labor instead of machines. This industry provides employment to more than 1.1 million Indian workers and almost half the workforce constitutes of women.

Beautiful tea fields There is a wide variety of tea offered by India; from Green Tea to CTC tea to the aromatic Darjeeling tea and the strong Assamese tea, the range of tea available in India is unparalleled. Indians take a lot of pride in their tea industry because of the pre-eminence of the industry as a significant earner of foreign exchange and a significant contributor to India’s GNP.

The three prominent tea-growing regions in India are Darjeeling, Assam and Nilgiri. While Darjeeling and Assam are located in the Northeast regions, Nilgiri is a part of the southern region of the country. A visit to these regions is made truly memorable by the endless rolling carpets of green which are the tea gardens and one cannot but help feeling enthralled and captivated at the sight of the huge tea estates. Majority of the tea factories are located within the premises of the tea estates and this is what accounts for the freshness of the tea. The process of tea production has a series of procedures and processes. The process starts with the plucking of tea leaves in the tea estates by women employees carrying a basket over the head and ends with the production of the ultimate tea.

There are mainly two ways of producing tea in India namely the CTC production and Orthodox production. CTC is an acronym for crush, tear and curl. The tea produced by this method is mostly used in tea bags. The orthodox production method consists of five stages, namely

withering, rolling, fermentation, drying and finally storing. It is not possible to compare the two varieties because their quality depends on factors such as rainfall, soil, wind and the method of plucking of tea leaves and both possess a unique charm of their own.

As the primary producer of an assortment of tea, India is the ideal destination for all tea enthusiasts.

History of tea in IndiaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The cultivation and brewing of tea in India has a long history. Commercial production of tea in India begins with the arrival of the British East India Company, at which point large tracts of land were converted for mass tea production.[1] The widespread popularity of tea as a recreational drink begins in the 1950s, after a successful advertising campaign by the India Tea Board.[1]

Today, India is one of the largest tea producers in the world, though over 70% of the tea is consumed within India itself. A number of renowned teas, such as Assam and Darjeeling, also grow exclusively in India. The Indian tea industry has grown to own many global tea brands, and has evolved to one of the most technologically equipped tea industries in the world. Tea production, certification, exportation, and all other facets of the tea trade in India is controlled by the Tea Board of India.

Contents

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1 History 2 Modern tea production in India 3 Government and the Indian tea industry 4 Demand for a Separate Time Zone 5 In popular culture 6 See also 7 References

History[edit]

Tea was first introduced into India by the British, in an attempt to break the Chinese monopoly on tea.[1] The British, "using Chinese seeds, plus Chinese planting and cultivating techniques, launched a tea industry by offering land in Assam to any European who agreed to cultivate tea for export."[1] Maniram Dewan (1806-1858) was the first Indian tea planter.[2]

Tea was originally only consumed by Anglicized Indians, and it was not until the 1950s that tea grew widely popular in India through a successful advertising campaign by the India Tea Board.[3] Prior to the British, the plant may have been used for medicinal purposes. Some cite the Sanjeevani tea plant first recorded reference of tea use in India. However, studies have shown that Sanjeevani plant was likely a plant unrelated to the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) and more likely refers to either Selaginella bryopteris or Desmotrichum fimbriatum.[4]

In the early 1820s, the British East India Company began large-scale production of tea in Assam, India, of a tea variety traditionally brewed by the Singpho tribe. In 1826, the British East India

Company took over the region from the Ahom kings through the Yandaboo Treaty. In 1837, the first English tea garden was established at Chabua in Upper Assam; in 1840, the Assam Tea Company began the commercial production of tea in the region, run by indentured servitude of the local inhabitants. Beginning in the 1850s, the tea industry rapidly expanded, consuming vast tracts of land for tea plantations. By the turn of the century, Assam became the leading tea producing region in the world.[5]

Writing in The Cambridge World History of Food', Weisburger & Comer write:

"The tea cultivation begun there [India] in the nineteenth century by the British, however, has accelerated to the point that today India is listed as the world's leading producer, its 715,000 tons well ahead of China's 540,000 tons, and of course, the teas of Assam, Ceylon (from the island nation known as Sri Lanka), and Darjeeling are world famous. However, because Indians average half a cup daily on per capita basis, fully 70 percent of India's immense crop is consumed locally."

Modern tea production in India[edit]

India was the top producer of tea for nearly a century, but recently China has overtaken India as the top tea producer due to increased land availability. Indian tea companies have acquired a number of iconic foreign tea enterprises including British brands Tetley and Typhoo. India is also the world's largest tea-drinking nation. However, the per capita consumption of tea in India remains a modest 750 grams per person every year due to the large population base and high chhass(A milk product) consumption.

Recently the consumption of Green tea has seen a great growth potential in India. The market is growing by over 50% y-o-y[6] and is expected to reach a size of INR 6000 crore form its current size in year 2013 of approx. INR 1500 crore.This is primarily driven by the increasing disposable income of middle class Indian, who are willing to spend more money on their personal health and well being. The major tea-producing states in India are: Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Sikkim, Nagaland, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Bihar, Orissa.

Government and the Indian tea industry[edit]

The Indian tea industry as the second largest employer in the country has enjoyed the attention of the Indian government. When export sales went down, the government has been sympathetic to the demand of the industry and its cultivators. It has passed resolutions supporting the industry domestically and has also lobbied extensively with organizations like the WTO internationally.

The Indian administration along with the European Union and six other countries (Brazil, Chile, Japan, South Korea and Mexico) filed a complaint with the WTO against the Byrd Amendment which was formally known as the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 legislated by the US. The essence of this act was that non-US firms which sell below cost price in the US could be fined and the money given to the US companies who made the complaint in the first

place. The act adversely affected the commodities business of the complainant states and has since been repealed after WTO ruled the act to be illegal.

Furthermore, the Indian government took cognizance of the changed tea and coffee market and set up an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) to look into their problems in late 2003. The IMC has recommended that the government share the financial burden of plantation industry on account of welfare measures envisaged for plantation workers mandated under the Plantation Labour Act 1951. Moreover, IMC has recommended to introduce means so that the agricultural income tax levied by the state governments can be slashed and the tea industry be made competitive. It has recommended that sick or bankrupt plantation estates should be provided with analogous level of relaxation for similarly placed enterprises/estates as are available to industries referred to BIFR.

A Special Tea Term Loan (STTL) for the tea sector was announced by the Indian government in 2004. It envisaged restructuring of irregular portions of the outstanding term/working capital loans in the tea sector with repayment over five to seven years and a moratorium of one year, which was to be on a case to case basis for large growers. The STTL also provides for working capital up to Rs. 2 lakhs at a rate not exceeding 9% to small growers.

In addition to these measures, the Tea Board plans to launch a new marketing initiative, which will include foray into new markets such as Iran, Pakistan, Vietnam and Egypt. It also plans to renew its efforts in traditional markets like Russia, the UK, Iraq and UAE. Noteworthy is its intent to double tea exports to Pakistan within a year.

Assam Orthodox Tea is set to receive the Geographical Indications (GI) exclusivity. A GI stamp identifies a certain product as emanating from the territory of a WTO member or region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographic origin.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs set up the Special Purpose Tea Fund (SPTF) under the tea Board on December 29, 2006. The aim is to fund replantation and rejuvenation (R&R) programme. In the same year, Tata Tea entered into an agreement to take over Jemca, which controls a 26 percent market share in the Czech Republic.

The CCEA gave its approval for pegging the subsidy at 25 per cent and adoption of a funding pattern of 25 per cent promoter's contribution, 25 per cent subsidy from the government and 50 per cent loan from the SPTF. Banks have also been instructed to increase the lending period to over 13 years.

In 2013 , Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry chose five countries which account for 42 per cent of the total tea exported from India – US, Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran and Egypt , for intensive promotional intervention through five specific activities over five years. [7]

Demand for a Separate Time Zone[edit]

Tea gardens in Assam do not follow the Indian Standard Time (IST), which is the time observed throughout India and Sri Lanka. The local time in Assam's tea gardens, known as 'Tea Garden Time' or Bagantime, is an hour ahead of the IST.[8] The system was introduced during British days keeping in mind the early sunrise in this part of the country.

By and large, the system has been successful in increasing the productivity of tea garden workers as they save on daylight by finishing the work during daytime. Working time for tea labourers in the gardens is generally between 9 a.m. (IST 8 a.m.) to 5 p.m. (IST 4p.m.) It may vary slightly from garden to garden.

Noted film maker Jahnu Barua has been campaigning for a separate time zone for the north east region.[8]

In popular culture[edit]

Sagina Mahato, a 1970 Bengali film, directed by Tapan Sinha, deal with labour rights in the tea plantations in the Northeast during the British Raj.

See also[edit]

Indian tea culture Tocklai Experimental Station

References[edit]

1. ^ a b c d Colleen Taylor Sen (2004). Food Culture in India. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 26–. ISBN 978-0-313-32487-1.

2. ̂ Titus Bhengra and Lamkholal Doungel (2009). Sarthak Sengupta, ed. The Tea Labourers of North East India: An Anthropo-historical Perspective. Mittal Publications. p. 101. ISBN 978-81-8324-306-3. Retrieved 10 September 2013.

3. ̂ Sen, Colleen Taylor. p. 26. "Ironically, it was the British who introduced tea drinking to India, initially to anglicized Indians.. tea did not become a mass drink in India until the 1950s when the India Tea Board, faced with a surplus of low-grade tea, launched an advertising campaign to popularize tea in the North, where the drink of choice was milk."

4. ̂ Ganeshaiah, K. N. (2009-08), "In search of Sanjeevani", Current Science 97 (4), retrieved 2010-11-17

5. ̂ Adivasis in Assam http://www.indiatogether.org/2008/may/soc-assamadi.htm6. ̂ http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/marketing/tata-global-beverages-taps-into-growing-

green-tea-culture/article4369306.ece7. ̂ "India to promote tea aggressively". The Hindu. August 5, 2013. Retrieved 05 August , 2013. 8. ^ a b "Assam tea gardens an hour 'ahead' of India - ZeeNews.com". Retrieved 18 July 2013.