1H tea crop lowest since 1995

Sri Lanka’s tea crop in the first half of 2020 at 129 million kg is the lowest for the period since 1995, Forbes and Walker Tea Brokers said last week. 

It said January-June 2020 tea production at 129 million kg, was down 29.8 million kg from a year earlier and it was the lowest bi-annual total production since 1995 when only 127.5 million kg were recorded. 

January-June 2020 High Grown production totalled 30.4 million kg, which is also lowest since 1992 when only 29.1 million kg were recorded. Similarly, Mediums totalling 22.4 million kg for the current year is the lowest since 2009 when only 21.4 million kg were produced during the first half.  Low Growns for January-June 2020 totalling 75.3 million kg too is the lowest since 2009, when January-June production was only 72.7 million kg. Tea crop in June totalled 26.8 million kg recording a decrease of 0.7 million kg from a year earlier. High Growns show a gain, whilst Mediums and Low Growns show a decrease.  

All elevations have shown a growth with High Growns in particular showing a substantial gain over the corresponding period followed by Medium Growns, whilst Low Growns have shown only a marginal gain. On a cumulative basis too, High Growns have shown a fairly significant growth followed by Medium Growns, whilst Low Growns show a slight decrease.

June 2020 CTC production totalled 2.3 million kg showing a gain of 0.4 million kg from 2019 whilst for January-June 2020, it was 11.7 million kg up 0.4 million kg a year earlier.