Bangladesh’s Tea Production Breaks a 167 Year Record during 2021

Bangladesh’s tea production in 2021 broke its tea industry’s 167-year history by recording production of over 96.506 million kgs in 2021. The 2021 production volumes recorded a YoY increase of 11.7% from 86.39 million kg in the previous year (2020). Tea production soared mainly due to the coordinated efforts of the government, garden owners and workers, and the tea board industry. Furthermore, the production of tea was boosted by suitable weather conditions and an ample supply of laborers to pluck the tea on time. The record-high production comes after 2020, during which the tea industry lost its momentum due to the COVID-19 outbreak in the country. The annual consumption of tea is around 90-95 million kg during the year, which has been increasing at 3-4% every year.

Over the last few years, Bangladesh has tried to reduce its tea imports and venture into the global tea export market. However, the country has not managed to increase its tea exports in a sustainable manner, with fluctuating tea leaf volumes in the past few years. In 2021, the country exported 0.68 million kg of tea leaves, a sharp drop from 2.17 million kg in 2020. Before this, the tea exports were 0.6 million kg in 2019, 0.65 million kg in 2018, and 2.56 million kg in 2017. The erratic export pattern is an outcome of the gradual rise in domestic consumption and ups and downs in production coupled with the limited volume of quality tea in the country. Tea imports have also fallen over the last few years given the increase in domestic production, but the country continues to import some volume of tea leaves.

The top tea marketing companies in Bangladesh continued to import tea as they were not satisfied with the quality of the majority of the locally-grown tea leaves. As per the Business Standard, domestic consumers have started developing a taste for fine tea, which is not available in the local auction market. Many popular companies continue to import tea leaves from different countries, including Kenya, to ensure the quality of their premium brands. The current trend in the Bangladesh tea industry seems to be increasing the country's overall tea production without paying a lot of attention to the quality of the leaves. Bangladesh has the potential to become self-sufficient and minimize its tea imports. It only needs to ensure that the quality of tea produced improves to cater to all segments of the market.