Siliguri, Jan. 6: High-priced CTC tea is selling more at Siliguri Tea Auction Centre, pointing to an overall improvement in the quality of production and boosting the chances of a turnaround for the recession-hit industry.

The market share of CTC tea selling at Rs 85 and above per kg (the highest price range) at the Siliguri auction centre was 12.74 per cent in 2007, up from 4.50 in 2006 and 4.66 in 2005.

The rise is even more impressive if the figure is compared to those of 2004 (2.71 per cent) and 2003 (1.73 per cent).

The records have been posted in the website — www.parcon-india.com — of Parcon India Pvt. Ltd, a Siliguri-based tea-brokering firm. The records take into account sales of both leaf and dust, the two forms in which CTC (crush, tear and curl) tea comes.

According to the figures, there has been similar increase in the sales of tea in other high price brackets (see chart).

On the other hand, tea selling below Rs 50 had a market share of only 3.03 per cent in 2007, a big improvement from 2005 when it was 28.36 per cent.

Industry watchers said the change was a result of the improvement in the quality of tea.

“Planters are now concentrating more on producing good-quality tea,” said K.K. Mintri, an adviser to the Tea Association of India, Terai Indian Planters’ Association and the Siliguri Tea Auction Committee. “Despite increasing costs, planters are not compromising with tea standards.”

The industry’s insistence on quality, most agree, follows the realisation that the falling standards of Indian tea had directly contributed to the loss of international markets like Russia and Egypt. This, coupled with a fall in domestic consumption, was a major factor that led to the tea-crisis.

“The quantity of domestic consumption may have gone up only by a small margin, but the domestic consumers are now willing to pay more for quality tea,” Mintri said.

“Improving the quality of tea was the best way for the industry to fight recession,” said P.K. Bhattacharya, the secretary of the Dooars Branch of Indian Tea Association. “If the trend continues, the industry will be able to spring back to the good old days of the 90s.”

Ravi Agarwal, the former chairman of Siliguri Tea Auction Committee and a tea trader, said a steady supply of quality tea could even help the industry capture its lost export markets.

Amal Roy Choudhury, the deputy director of Tea Board (north Bengal), said: “If planters continue producing quality tea, they will have no problem finding takers in both domestic and international markets.”