June tea crop plunges to 23-year low

Tea production in June hit a 23-year low of 20.1 million kilos, Asia Siyaka Commodities PLC revealed yesterday.

It said the lowest crop for the month of June was 19.3 million kilos recorded in 1999. The June 2022 crop is also down 22% YoY from 2021 quantity of 26 million kilos.

Asia Siyaka said high grown tea production of 4.05 million kilos in June was lowest ever on record, with closest to this figure was 4.5 million kilos in 2004.

The Low Grown tea production amounted to 13.1 million kilos down 16% from a year ago. The 2022 June figure is the lowest since 2007 when 12.8 million kilos was produced.

Mid Grown crop of 2.9 million kilos was also the lowest in record and was down 44% from last year.

Asia Siyaka said tea production for the first half of the year has dropped by 18% to 132.9 million kilos from a year ago. High Grown production was 31.2 million kilos compared with 36.6 million kilos the year before.

“One has to go back to the El-Nino year of 1992 when a severe drought limited production in the first half to 29.1 million kilos to find similar production figures,” Asia Siyaka said. Low Grown crop of 79 million kilos reflected an 18% drop from 1H of 2021.