Guwahati: Tea major Amalgamated Plantations Private Limited (APPL) has joined hands with a Chinese tea buyer to sell CTC tea in China.

The tea is being sold as milk tea in tea parlours in China, where tea-based drinks are popular among consumers.

"They are using Assam CTC tea as base," Jagjeet Singh Kandal, managing director of APPL, told The Telegraph. Kandal visited China recently to sign the agreement with a Chinese buyer to sell CTC teas of the APPL.

The company has 25 gardens in Assam and Bengal.

"They call it milk tea, which is a tea-based drink," he said, adding that they have set up an office in Shanghai.

Tea Board of India has set a fresh annual export target of 15 million kg of black tea to China in the next couple of years. An official said the market is growing and 8 million kg of tea was exported to China last year.

Another official said CTC teas are in huge demand in China and they are ready to import a large quantity.

The Intergovernmental Group of Tea under the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said new market trends suggest a move by consumers from a range of different beverages to tea. The trends include surge of new, value-added products like ready-to-drink fruit and flavoured teas and an expansion of green tea consumption outside Asia. "The drive for innovation is evident as consumers increasingly demand natural and organic ingredients, in diversified blends, flavours and environments. There is also growing interest in higher quality speciality teas with particular flavours," it said.

The FAO said China is responsible for the accelerated growth in global tea output, as production increased more than double from 1.17 million tonnes in 2007 to 2.44 million tonnes in 2016. The expansion in tea production is in response to unprecedented growth in domestic demand, underpinned by China's economic growth at an average of 10 per cent over the last 30 years. The massive expansion is also a result of increased consumer health consciousness and rapid development of herbal tea beverages characterised by the tradition of drinking tea.

China accounted for 42.6 per cent of the world's tea production in 2016.