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A volume of 13.05 lakh kg has been catalogued for sale 3 of the auctions of Coonoor Tea Trade Association to be held on Thursday and Friday.
This is as much as 3.75 lakh kg less than the offer for last sale. It is the lowest volume of the past 10 months.
The lower volume arose principally due to adverse winter. “Heavy crop loss occurred during the October-December quarter due to prolonged misty weather. Crop loss got aggravated due to high incidence of blister blight disease”, KG Udaya Bhanu, Deputy Director of UPASI Tea Research Foundation, said.
He said that in particular, during December, production in The Nilgiris, the largest tea growing district of South India, declined by as much as 37.5 per cent over December 2020.
“Besides, two major festivals kept farmers and workers away from the field in January – the ‘Hethaiamman’ festival, the most prominent festival of the Baduga, the predominant community among small growers, and Pongal. Consequently, harvesting of green leaves suffered resulting in lower manufacture and lesser arrival of teas for the auctions”, explained S Ramu, Chairman, Small Tea Growers’ Association of Southern India (STASI).
Of the 13.05 lakh kg offered for this week’s auctions, as much as 12.04 lakh kg belongs to CTC variety and only 1.01 lakh kg orthodox variety. In the leaf tea counter, only 76,000 kg belongs to orthodox while 9.61 lakh kg, CTC. Among the dust tea, only 25,000 kg belongs to orthodox while 2.43 lakh kg, CTC. In all, 10.37 lakh kg belongs to Leaf grades and 2.68 lakh kg, Dust grades.
Auction toppers
Crosshill Estate topped the auctions last week when its Red Dust grade, auctioned by Global Tea Auctioneers Private Ltd., (GTAPL) was bought by Tea Services India Private Ltd., for ₹326 a kg. Crosshill Estate’s Pekoe Dust grade, auctioned by GTAPL, followed at ₹305 a kg. In the CTC Leaf tea auction, two grades of Homedale Estate, auctioned by GTAPL, topped at ₹320 and ₹310 each. Pinewood Estate followed at ₹304. These were the only CTC grades which crossed ₹300/kg mark.
Quotations with the brokers indicated ₹74-81 a kg for plain Leaf grades and ₹175-209 for the best grades. For plain Dust grades, they ranged ₹74-87 and for the best grades, ₹193-241.
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