Tea: Characteristics
Strength, colour and briskness: how tasters judge leaf
What this tab covers The supply and physical characteristics of the commodity. Supply: current production, inventories and stocks, capacity utilisation, geographic and producer concentration, how fast supply responds to price, the project pipeline and capital spending, and logistics and export flows. Material: the physical and chemical properties that set its grade, price and end uses (for example purity and conductivity for metals, API gravity, sulfur and energy content for fuels, moisture, protein and fibre quality for crops).Supply volume characteristics
| Characteristic | Figure | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current production volume | 32.7 Mt of fresh tea leaf (2024), roughly 6.5-8 Mt of made tea | FAOSTAT reports a fresh-leaf basis; made tea is about one quarter to one fifth of leaf weight. India made 1,395.5 million kg of made tea in 2025. | FAOSTAT 2024; Tea Board of India 2025; conversion indicative |
| Inventory and stock levels | not published | There is no official stocks series. Made tea loses quality within months, so stocks are working inventories at packers and auction warehouses. The Indian Tea Association pointed to a global surplus of about 418 million kg in October 2025. | Indian Tea Association, Tea India 2026 |
| Capacity utilisation | not published | Factory utilisation is not reported. The best proxy is profitability: ITA says about 80% of organised Indian estates reported cash losses in the year to its October 2025 AGM, as wages rose and the all-auction price fell to Rs 188.03/kg in 2025. | Indian Tea Association, 2025-26 |
| Geographic and producer concentration | China 49.7%, top-3 (China, India, Kenya) 76.7%, HHI 2,953 | Production is highly concentrated in China, but China drinks most of its own tea. Exports are spread: China 19.7%, Kenya 19.6% and Sri Lanka 19.4% of value in 2024. Company shares are not published; KTDA in Kenya and packers such as Tata Consumer and LIPTON are large. | FAOSTAT 2024; UN Comtrade 2024 |
| Supply elasticity | short run: medium through plucking intensity; long run: several years for new bushes | Growers can pluck more often or more coarsely within weeks when prices rise. New bushes take several years to reach full yield and then crop for decades, so area changes slowly. | content_v2 tea methods (indicative) |
| Project pipeline and CapEx | no new capacity pipeline; the market is in surplus | Supply growth comes from small growers in India (56.6% of 2025 output), China and Kenya rather than new estates. Assam raised the small-grower income tax exemption to Rs 10 lakh from April 2026. | Tea Board 2025; ITA, Tea India 2026 |
| Logistics and export flows | India exported 285.5 million kg, about 20% of its output (2025); world exports worth $7.2 billion (2024) | Tea moves in containers from Mombasa, Colombo, Kolkata and Kochi. Pakistan, the US, UK, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are the main importers. Red Sea disruption since 2024 raised freight to Europe and the Mediterranean. | Tea Board of India 2025; UN Comtrade 2024 |
Material characteristics Agricultural / soft commodity
Tea is graded by leaf size and by taste. Buyers value liquor strength, colour and briskness, which come from the leaf's chemistry (caffeine and polyphenols, and theaflavins formed during oxidation). Food standards set minimum water extract and ash limits to catch adulteration. Moisture must stay low or the tea goes stale and mouldy.
| Property | Value / specification | Why it matters | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water extract | at least 32% (dry basis) | Low extract signals spent or adulterated tea; it is a legal minimum in Indian food rules | ISO 3720; FSSAI standard for tea (indicative) |
| Total ash | 4-8% (dry basis) | Values outside the range signal sand, dust or adulteration | ISO 3720; FSSAI (indicative) |
| Moisture of made tea | about 3-6% at packing | Higher moisture causes staleness and mould | trade practice (indicative) |
| Leaf grade | CTC: BP, BOP, PF, Dust; orthodox: OP, FBOP, BOPF | Smaller CTC grades brew fast for tea bags and Indian chai; whole-leaf orthodox grades sell at premiums | Tea Board / auction catalogues |
| Caffeine | about 2-4% of dry weight | Drives briskness and stimulant effect | tea science literature (indicative) |
| Theaflavins (CTC black tea) | roughly 0.3-1.5% | Give the bright colour and briskness auction tasters pay for | tea science literature (indicative) |