Low temperature limits fresh tea arrivals at Coonoor auctions

A volume of 134.88 lakh kg has been catalogued for sale 7 of the auctions of Coonoor Tea Trade Association (CTTA) to be held on Thursday and Friday. It is among the lowest volume of the past one year although it is some 91,000 kg more than offer for last week. Importantly, this includes a substantial volume of teas unsold in previous auctions. The arrival of fresh teas has not picked up yet as production in January was less than normal level due to adverse winter. “Night temperature was low in many estates in the second fortnight of January. Minimum temperature crashed to one degree Celsius in Craigmore and Dunsandle areas. Consequently, production declined to 0.70 million kg (mkg) from 0.77 in January 2021 and 0.81 mkg in the five-year average for the month. This meant that low temperature stunted production by 9.09 per cent over January 2021 and 13.58 per cent over the five-year mean for the month”, Deputy Director of UPASI Tea Research Foundation KG Udaya Bhanu said. Of the 14.88 lakh kg offered for this week’s auctions, as much as 13.75 lakh kg belongs to CTC variety and only 1.13 lakh kg orthodox variety. The proportion of orthodox teas continues to be low in both leaf and dust grades. In the leaf tea counter, only 79,000 kg belongs to orthodox; while 10.08 lakh kg, CTC. Among the dust tea, only 34,000 kg belongs to orthodox while 3.67 lakh kg, CTC. In all, 10.87 lakh kg belongs to Leaf grades and 4.01 lakh kg, Dust grades. Two grades of Homedale Estate’s dust teas, auctioned by Global Tea Auctioneers Pvt Ltd., (GTAPL), topped the entire auctions last week when Girnar Food and Beverages Pvt Ltd., bought it for ₹380 a kg each. In the CTC Leaf tea auctions, Homedale Estate’s Broken Orange Pekoe grade, auctioned by GTAPL, topped fetching ₹351. These were the only CTC grades which crossed ₹300/kg mark this week. Among other CTC teas, Pinewood Estate got ₹257, Darmona Estate ₹252 and Vigneshwar Estate ₹246. Quotations with the brokers indicated ₹80-84 a kg for plain Leaf grades and ₹171-252 for the best grades. For plain Dust grades, they ranged ₹82-91 and for the best grades, ₹ 61-246.