Tea statistics: global scenario.

Abstract

Tea is one of the most popular and lowest cost beverages in the world and consumed by a large number of people. Owing to its increasing demand, tea is considered to be one of the major components of world beverage market. The global market for hot beverages (coffee and tea) is forecasted to reach US$69.77 billion in value and 10.57 million tons in volume terms by the year 2015 (GIA, 2011). Tea cultivation is confined only to certain specific regions of the world due to specific requirements of climate and soil. Majority of the tea producing countries are located in the continent of Asia where China, India, Sri Lanka are the major producers. African tea growing countries are located mostly around the tropical regions where Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda are major producers. Apart from these regions, some quantities of tea are also being produced in South America (Argentina, Brazil and others), the Near East (Iran and Turkey) and the CIS (Russia and Georgia).