India as Top Producer of Tea in the World—Some Observations

India is the world’s leading commercial producer of tea. It is popular not only as a stimulating health drink, but also as a foreign exchange earner for India. The product variations of tea consist of green tea, packet tea, tea bags or cans, instant tea and flavored tea in India. Though both North and South India are engaged in tea production, North India has been the major producing region, contributing to more than 75% of the total production. The export-production ratio of Indian tea recorded a gradual decline, whereas the domestic consumption and production ratio of Indian tea demonstrated an upward movement during the study period. This study demonstrates the negative relationship between production of tea and exports of tea from India during 1950 to 1998. This study also brings out the exciting fact that the production of tea is largely confined to South Asian and African countries which are all developing countries and about 90% of their production is consumed in the developed countries. Further, this study highlights that India and Sri Lanka are the leading countries and Indonesia, East Africa and Latin America are the minors in the tea production. The country concentration index indicated the highly fluctuating trend in the production of tea in the world. It is evident from the study that the country concentration index of tea is less than 40% since 1986 due to the entry of the East African countries into tea production. Finally this study recommends that the increase in the level of tea production, adopting fine plucking to maintain good quality, and introduction of innovative tea products are very crucial to maintain the supremacy of India as the top producer of tea in the world.