Indian Tea Culture - Modern Tea Production in India

Modern Tea Production in India

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 poverty levels. From Rs 19,500 crore in 2011, the total turnover of the Indian tea industry is expected to be Rs 33,000 crore by 2015 according to the ASSOCHAM report of 2011. The same report pegs 90 per cent of all Indian households as regular tea drinkers. The reasons stated are “tea is cheap, affordable, and addictive.” And yet, the annual per capita tea consumption in India was only 0.52 kg per person in 2009.

The Cambridge World History of Food (Kiple & Ornelas 2000:715–716), writes:

In general, even though India leads the world in tea technology, the methods employed to harvest the crop vary with the type of tea and terrain. Fine-leaf tea is hand plucked, and hand shears are used on mountain slopes and in other areas where tractor-mounted machines cannot go. A skilled worker using hand shears can harvest between 60 to 100 kg of tea per day, whereas machines cut between 1,000 and 2, 000 kg. The latter, however, are usually applied to low grade teas that often go into teabags. The tea "fluff" and waste from processing is used to produce caffeine for soft drinks and medicine.