There are clear indications that India’s tea production in the current calendar year will crash by the largest decline. Lockdowns paired with adverse weather conditions, especially in the North East and West Bengal, is the reason behind the weak production.

According to Rajesh Gupta, compiler of Global Tea Digest, “The Tea Board has now announced the data for August, which shows that tea production in the country that month had fallen by 12.50 million kg (mkg) or 7.26% over August 2019.” Continuing further he told about the compilation of this data from various producing regions shows that India’s tea output in the first eight months of this calendar year nosedived to 669 mkg from 821.42 mkg in January-August 2019. This marked a shortfall of 152.42 mkg or 18.56%. The decline was acute in North India, where the plantations were closed for winter till February, and then faced adversities due to the nationwide lockdown to fight against Covid-19. North India’s production till August crashed to 533.48 mkg from 684.45 mkg in January-August 2019.

North India lost 22.06% of its last year’s output in this period. All the tea-producing regions in the North comprising Assam and West Bengal reported a lower output, but Assam continued to top the country’s production table with 308.92 mkg — down by as much as 106.27 mkg or 25.60%. South Indian output declined marginally to 135.52 mkg from 136.97 mkg in January-August 2019, marking a loss of 1.45 mkg or 1.06%. Tamil Nadu produced 93.01 mkg against 96.25 mkg in January-August 2019, accounting for a decline of 3.24 mkg or 3.37%. On the contrary, Kerala posted a gain of 1.37 mkg (3.62%) to reach 39.22 mkg from 37.85 mkg. The impact of this news has already reached the market causing a price rise.