India is the world’s largest producer and consumer of tea today, barely a century and a half after its first crop, with over a million acres under cultivation and over two million people employed in the industry. Whereas tea was always grown by China’s peasant farmers in small patches along with other crops, in India tea has always been a agribusiness based on the plantation model. Combined, these plantations produce almost eight hundred million kilograms of black tea a year, perhaps 10 percent of which is still made by the old-fashioned Orthodox method. For reasons of economics, India’s tea is increasingly made by CTC machinery. CTC requires less labor to produce, is ideal for tea bags and yields more cups to the pound. CTC tea is granulated rather than whole or broken leaf and the best of it is admittedly nothing to sniff at. On the other hand, CTC equal to the finest Assam or Nilgiri teas of Orthodox manufacture does not exist. (Darjeeling produces no CTC tea at all.) A little fair-quality green tea is also produced here and there in India, notably around Dehra Dun in the Kangra district, where China plants survive, and on certain Darjeeling and Nilgiri estates.
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India is neither the biggest producer nor biggest consumer today. 2008 crop was 980 million kilos which is second to China’s 1000 million kilos plus of 2008 and China’s per capita consumption is far ahead of India’s 700 g per head and is somewhere near a kilo per head. This has made China a nett importer of tea in recent year with the exports soaring nearly 400 million kilos compared to India’s approximately 200 million kilos of 2008.
Things has changed and seemingly 2009 picture will be far brighter for both of these countries as recession has not effected tea – creamy layer has given way to tea.
Wow….Who knew?! Had to google CTC to discover it means “crush , tear, curl”. Though I’ve always enjoyed teas (and, unapologetically, coffee) of all kinds, brands, nationalities, I never realized the production was so complex. Further, I am humbled and amazed by all the tea knowledge, tea sites, tea rituals, tea nuances discussed here and elsewhere.
Anonymous – Please keep in mind that this text is a reprint from some of Norwoods previous writings and as such is a bit out of date when it comes to stats such as the ones you refer to. Yes, you are correct. China had previously consumed most of the teas they produced, in country. Since they have expanded their production for export, they became the largest exporters of tea about 2 years ago – to our great appreciation.
Since this passage was first written, there has also been great strides made in India in the increased production of very high quality loose leaf teas, both black and green. Through the efforts of people like Rajah Banerjee and Rajiv Lochan, we have seen some very wonderfully delicious high quality teas, including organic, come from India. It was not until I was exposed to these wonderful teas from Darjeeling and Assam that I developed true appreciation and enjoyment of black tea.
Thanks Sandy for your kind remarks. I had written those crop and export figues for the updated knowledge of your readers. Inadvertantly I did not log in – hence the Anonymous marking. JNP’s posts are always very informative and interesting.
Rajiv Lochan
CTC is also, as I understand it, more easy to use in the ‘espresso extraction’ tea machines
such as the Teapresso. However, I have tried it and didn’t feel it came close to good quality
loose leaf and don’t use it, as our patent pending brewing system doesn’t require any alteration of the tea leaf at all and doesn’t use an espresso-style extraction. I’d like to hear from anyone
who is using CTC here and their comparisons in taste to loose leaf.
Hey Team,
CTC works exceedingly well in a Teapresso machine. The whole purpose of making a tea shot is not to drink it straight up – like they do with coffee, but as a base for lattes or iced. The tannins in the tea would be most unpleasant at this strength. A good strong tea shot is the base of all good tea lattes – 4 oz of tea, 12 oz of steamed milk. You can see that the tea, in this particular usage does not have to be of the utmost quality (because of the dilution). Adding it to 12 oz of hot milk will mask the subtle qualities you may find in high end tea. The ideal tea latte has tons of tea character & body and is smooth and creamy on the palate from the addition of the steamed milk.
There are a lot of CTC’s on the market, and like any tea there are very poor quality ones and also very high quality ones. Even for tea lattes, I always buy the best quality CTC I can find for my lattes, even though the layman would never know the difference when served in a latte style drink. The seasoned tea drinker just may though, so I don’t want to be caught with my pant down (so to speak).
Believe it or not, excellent quality CTC’s will make a beautiful cup of rich black tea through the Teapresso – you just have to know what you are doing behind the machine.