Homedale Tea Factory, a bought leaf factory, created a new price record at sale S7 of the auctions of Coonoor Tea Trade Association (CTTA). “Our Red Dust grade, auctioned by Global Tea Auctioneers Pvt Ltd., (GTAPL), topped the entire auctions when Tea Services India Pvt Ltd., bought it for ₹400 a kg. This is the highest price fetched by any tea in the regular of CTTA so far this year. It is also the highest price fetched any of our teas since manufacturing started in our factory in 1949”, Homedale Managing Partner Raman Menon told BusinessLine. Two other Dust grades of Homedale, auctioned by GTAPL, followed at ₹371 each. In the CTC Leaf tea auctions, Homedale’s two grades, auctioned by GTAPL, topped at ₹360 and ₹331. Among other CTC teas, Crosshill Estate Special got ₹310, Pinewood Estate ₹278, Vigneshwar Estate ₹270 and Darmona Estate ₹266. Among orthodox teas, Chamraj got ₹246, Nonsuch Orthodox ₹237, Kairbetta ₹235 and Erinkadu ₹200. Export participation was very selective. “Orders have practically dried up from Russia and Europe due to the Russia-Ukraine tension. Protests blocking road transport in Canada against mandatory vaccination orders and frozen water and roadways in the USA have also hit tea movement”, an exporter L Vairavan said. “Besides, the inconsistency in the screen display of the auction lots due to cloud server issues in the newly introduced Bharath Auction module also affected exporters’ active participation”, he observed. Consequently, teas worth ₹4.73 crore were withdrawn as there were no takers for as much as 32 per cent of the offer. This was the largest value of teas withdrawn in the recent many months.

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