The price of Indian teas has seen a dip in Russia and some other countries of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), during the first eight months of the current year, compared to the corresponding period last year.

Representatives of the tea industry attribute it to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Of the total tea exported from India, close to 27 per cent is sent to these countries.

At the start of this tea season, stakeholders had feared a decline in export to the CIS countries because of the ongoing war.

But there was a rise in tea export, albeit marginal.

“Tea export has shown a marginal rise of around 1.43 million kilos (around 1 per cent) in the CIS countries. But prices have gone down. This, we believe, is because of the war situation,” said Prabir Bhattacharjee, secretary general, Tea Association of India.

According to data available with Tea Board of India, in Russia, the average price of a kilo of Indian teas was Rs 183.36, which reduced to Rs 160.63 this year. The average price per kilo in Kazakhstan was Rs 211.55 in 2021, which has come down to Rs 168.66 this year.

According to some tea planters, what helped the industry offset the loss to an extent was the rise in the tea prices in Iran and the UAE, two other major buyers of Indian tea. In recent years, around 25 per cent of India’s total tea exports are to these countries.

“However, considering the present state of affairs in Russia, there are serious doubts whether the prices will go up in the current season that is about to end,” said Rana Dey, secretary, Dooars Branch of Indian Tea Association.

Though the prices have gone down in some other countries too, including the UK, the quantity of export, however, showed an increase of around 15 per cent from January to August vis-à-vis the quantity exported during the corresponding period in 2021.

Last year, 122.18 million kilos of tea were exported in first eight months of the year. This year, it has increased to 140.28 million kilos.

A senior planter based in Siliguri mentioned that the Indian tea industry is still very far from the target of exporting around 300 million kilos of tea in a year.

“The pandemic has affected exports in past two years. Now that the situation has improved, it is high time that we explore new markets to send more teas from our country. This rise in export can help improve the tea industry which often suffers from paucity of funds due to steady rise in the cost of production,” said the planter.