Tea: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Tea is sold mainly through auctions in Kolkata, Colombo and Mombasa, and prices depend on Indian, Kenyan and Sri Lankan harvests, rainfall, quality, and demand from importers in Pakistan, Egypt, Russia and Britain.
Market price World Bank Pink Sheet: Tea, avg 3 auctions $/kg · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026What its price moves with
Selected linkTea and Coffee
Monthly changes 0.06 little or none correlation 12-month changes 0.20 weak correlation Last 5 years 0.13 monthly changes Lead or lag none No clear lead or lag Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Tea ≈ 2.01 × (Coffee)0.21 R² 0.25 On this fit, a 10% higher coffee price goes with a 2.1% higher tea price over the long run. Units: $/kg and $/kg. The fit is loose, so treat the function as a rough guide.Chart: Tea and Coffee prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, log scale
Both prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, on a log scale so equal percentage moves look the same size.Chart: Tea price against Coffee price, monthly, log scales, with fitted line
Each dot is one month; paler dots are older (2006), darker dots recent (2026); the ringed dot is the latest month. The dashed line is the fitted price function. Both axes are logarithmic.Tea and coffee compete for the same drinkers, but each market follows its own crops and regions. The auction average shows almost no link with arabica coffee: monthly moves correlate at 0.06 and yearly moves at 0.20.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsMuch tea, especially in India, is drunk with sugar, but this does not tie the prices. Monthly moves correlate at 0.18 and yearly moves at 0.18, a weak link probably reflecting general commodity cycles.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsTea bushes need heavy nitrogen fertiliser, so urea is a key estate cost, and costly fertiliser lowers yields when estates cut back. The auction price barely shows it: monthly moves correlate at 0.14 and yearly moves at 0.19.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsTea factories wither and dry leaves with heat, often from firewood in Kenya and Sri Lanka, or coal and gas in India. Fuel is a large processing cost, but firewood has no public price series here.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.How to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.