India ranks among the world's tea powers thanks to its professional tea auction system

 

Many people do not know that India is the world's 4th largest tea exporting country, with annual export value exceeding 800 million US dollars.

 

India's tea industry is so outstanding, and the core key is attributable to the professional tea auction system established by the British over a hundred years ago.

 

According to a report by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics under India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry, India is the world's 4th largest tea exporting country, after Kenya, China and Sri Lanka, with tea export values in the 2019 and 2020 fiscal years reaching 830.9 million US dollars and 826.47 million US dollars respectively.

 

In addition, India ranked as the world's 2nd largest tea producing country in the 2019 fiscal year, with output reaching 1.3397 billion kg; at the same time, India is also the world's largest tea consuming country, with domestic consumption accounting for about 3/4 of India's tea production.

 

From the British colonial era, in order to reduce the purchase of tea from China, after the British failed in 1774 to transplant Chinese Lingnan tea to India, they hired Hakka and Guangdong immigrants to grow tea in India's Darjeeling (Dajeeling) and Assam (Assam), where the climate and humidity are similar to Lingnan, and planted tea varieties from the upper reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, laying the foundation for India's tea industry in the 1880s.

 

But for India's tea industry, the more important development was that British colonists founded the Indian Tea Association in Kolkata in 1881, and established the first tea manufacturing joint-stock company in London, then established an open and transparent tea auction system, allowing India's tea industry to grow to its current scale.

 

After the tea auction system was established, India currently has about 10 tea auction companies, among which the outstanding one has become today's world's largest and also oldest J Thomas & Co Pvt Ltd tea auction company, and the auction format has also changed from on-site bidding in the past to now, as long as one registers and pays the relevant fees, one can participate in tea bidding through an online platform.

 

Arjun Singh Deo, senior general manager of J Thomas & Co Pvt Ltd, who has been engaged in tea auctions for 21 years, said in an exclusive interview with the Central News Agency that the predecessor of J Thomas & Co Pvt Ltd was the British Indian tea trade center in Kolkata, with a history of 150 years so far, and that as much as 200 million kg of tea is traded through this auction platform every year.

 

At present, 4 major categories and a total of 2000 kinds of tea are auctioned on the platform, including Darjeeling tea, CTC tea (CTC is a tea-making method, namely crushing, tearing and curling), orthodox tea (orthodox tea, mainly sold to the Middle East) and Dust tea (Dust tea).

 

Deo pointed out that the key for the tea industry to transform from past family businesses into a modern commercialized and internationalized industry lies in an open and transparent professional auction system.

 

He said that the reason J Thomas & Co Pvt Ltd has been able to stand for over a hundred years, in addition to the long-term credibility established in the past, is more importantly the professional auction procedures of selecting, brewing, tasting and writing tea variety valuation reports.

 

Deo stated that the company currently trains and employs 4 to 50 professional tea valuers, who, through the company's long-term training, must complete tea variety valuation reports within 10 to 15 days, and send tea samples and valuation reports to all bidding customers two weeks before the auction day, and finally on the auction day, customers can bid for the tea varieties they want based on the tea samples and valuation reports they have received.

 

In addition, Deo pointed out that J Thomas & Co Pvt Ltd also provides professional advice to tea makers across India, including suggestions on tea varieties to plant according to the climate and humidity of the tea producing area, as well as professional advice on tea-making procedures such as tea harvesting, cutting, roasting and flavor control, machine procurement and target customer groups, coaching tea makers to stabilize production and supply tea to the market.

 

Under the professionalism and credibility established by J Thomas & Co Pvt Ltd over the long term, including India's Tata group and Unilever and other Indian domestic or international large enterprises, all are regulars participating in bidding on the J Thomas & Co Pvt Ltd auction platform; after winning their desired tea, they package and brand it themselves for sale, or export it to other major international tea-selling brands.

 

India's tea industry holds a leading position in Asia through its internationalized and modernized tea auction system. But Deo said that because tea auctions require a local government license, and also require a high degree of credit investigation and credibility to persuade customers and tea merchants to conduct huge transactions through this platform; cross-border operations are relatively difficult, but J Thomas & Co Pvt Ltd still receives people from all over the world who come to inspect, and provides professional advice.

 

Regarding Taiwan, China's tea industry, most of which is still in a family tea-making form, a smallholder economy, and has no modern tea auction system, Deo said he is very happy to provide professional advice to visitors from Taiwan, China.

 

In order to promote cooperation between the tea industries of Taiwan, China and India, Liu Jianjun, director of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council's office in Kolkata, has visited Deo many times to explore the possibility of bilateral cooperation.