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Diluting the brew: The silent invasion of inferior teas

As Indian tea struggles with falling prices and oversupply, the unchecked influx of low-quality imports threatens its legacy, calling for urgent regulatory intervention and industry-wide reforms.

By The Assam Tribune
Diluting the brew: The silent invasion of inferior teas
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A file image of Beautiful tea plantation of the Karbi Anglong district of Assam (Photo: @DRPRADIPBARUAH2/X)

At a time when Indian tea continues to battle blues, the issue of the rising influx of inferior quality tea into India has added another sinister dimension to the growing challenges by the sector. The situation calls for imposition of a protocol of stringent checks to regulate imports. It is good to see a parliamentary panel hold separate meetings with the producer associations, exporter bodies and labour department officials in an attempt to ease the crisis.

Shockingly, there exists a gross mismatch in respect of tea imported into India and the figure published by the Tea Board of India - something that can perhaps be explained by the fact that a majority of tea imports are not being declared on the Tea Council portal as required. This, again, is an attempt to conceal actual import figures, which seem to be 2 to 3 times higher than official figures.

The authorities need to go deeper into this issue so that the apparent malpractice of most of the duty-free tea (that has been imported) being re-exported as 'Indian tea' in violation of national law is stopped. As most teas being imported are poor quality teas originating from Iran, Vietnam and Africa, this can wreak havoc with the trusted brand of Indian tea built over decades.

Re-exporting these teas as 'Indian tea' is not just giving a bad reputation to Indian tea, it also undermines the price of Indian tea to the detriment of genuine exporters and the image of Indian tea.

Another disturbing fallout of the development has been that a sizable portion of these cheap duty-free imported teas is also finding its way into the Indian domestic market and sold as produced in India, thereby crippling the prices of Indian teas at the domestic market.

There is logic in the demand by the Indian Tea Association for fixing a mini-mum import price of tea to stop the influx of cheap teas into India and imposition of quantitative restrictions on the import of tea into India and anti-dumping duty. Also perplexing has been the inertia of the government authorities to the surge in tea imports in the last 3-4 years (85 per cent in the case of Kenya), which has aggravated the domestic oversupply situation.

The influx has exacerbated the over-supply situation, contributing to falling prices despite a production shortfall in 2024, mainly because of the lack of stringent import regulations to safeguard Indian tea. Rising imports in recent years have emerged as a major cause of worry for the industry, accentuated further by the avail-ability of cheap tea from outside countries where the cost of production is less.

It is time the industry, too, reinvented itself through a pragmatic strategy with a thrust on broadening the consumer base through effective brand building. Tea tourism, too, has immense potential in Assam and it needs to be pursued aggressively - something that would boost both tea sales and brand building.

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