Spring Tea Production Fell And Prices Rose In 2010

According to the report, the 2010 National Spring Tea production is estimated at 600,000 tones, fell about 20% compared with 2009; affected by tea cuts and other factors, the national average prices of spring tea is increased about 20% compared with 2009.

Yunnan tea, jasmine tea and other tea types have shown a strong upward trend. A senior official of Yunnan tea industry said, raw material price of Yunnan tea increased about 60%, after the general tea processing, the price rose about 10%, high-end tea has greater rate of increase.

Houkui is one of the representative of Anhui high-end tea products, a sales manager of Anhui Tea Import & Export Ltd said that in this year the price of general Houkui is about 500-800 yuan per catty, prices rose about 20%.

Jasmine is the main raw materials of jasmine tea, as the soaring price of jasmine, jasmine tea prices are also expected to rise. Hengxian in Guangxi is the largest national production base of jasmine, its local new Jasmine price is 9 yuan per catty, the price is as high as 3 to 4 times compared with previous years, so Jasmine tea prices soaring is inevitable.

Most of the country's tea areas entered to the spring tea picking period since February. But because of the sudden cold, snow, drought, wind and other inclement weather, nearly 50% national tea-producing areas was hit, and the picking time be postponed, farmers suffered losses for the new tea quality decreased slightly.

Spring tea production cut up to 50% in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi three Provinces, some tea tree mortality rate got to 80% or above, although some rainfall occured, but it did not alleviate the ongoing drought. The frost earlier this year and the cold air before Ching Ming Festival, made so many high mountain tea died, also led to tea raw material price rise 60%.

Most tea-producing areas suffered the bad weather, they took positive remedial measures, such as Pruning tea tree branches, adding tea fertilizer. The weather is getting warmer, and with the commissioning of new tea, spring tea production output can make up for the early loss part, also ease the spring tea supply to some extent.

Take Yunnan for example, rainfall increased since April this year, and spring tea production has increased to some extent. Hunan, Sichuan, Shandong, Hainan, and other areas' spring tea production is stable, Hainan tea production increased either, and it made up for the substantially tea production cut in southwest, Zhejiang, and Fujian. It is estimated that the total output of the spring tea in 2010 may decrease 20% compared with 2009, and the price will increases about 20%.


Copyright (c) 2010 Steven Jiang