Tea: Movement
Three exporters, neck and neck at the top
What this tab covers How it flows between countries: the largest bilateral trade routes drawn on a world map, 2024 UN Comtrade export and import values with the top exporters and importers by share, plus shipping routes, chokepoints and trade restrictions.UN Comtrade data for tea (HS 0902) show $7.2 billion of exports in 2024, split almost evenly at the top: China 19.7% by value, Kenya 19.6% and Sri Lanka 19.4%, then India 11.2%. Imports are more dispersed. Pakistan took 12.1%, the United States 11.0% and the United Kingdom 7.1%, followed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco. Radetzki & Wårell note that Kenya, which treated its growers more fairly, became the largest black tea exporter by 2014, while Sri Lanka's share shrank under heavy taxation. They find the top five exporters supplied 63% of world tea exports in 2017.
Where it is exported from and imported to, 2024
Chart: World map of the largest trade flows
Exporter (size = share of world exports) Importer (share of world imports) Shipping chokepoint UN Comtrade 2024. Bubbles: shares of reported world exports and imports for the main traded form. Country-to-country route lines are not available for this commodity yet. Hover a circle for values.