Climate change and the global tea industry

Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world. The only drink that is more consumed than tea is water. In order to show you how big the tea industry is, I will quote the production of tea in metric tonnes for 2018 - which is 5.8 million metric tonnes. This figure for 2020 is still not published. However, we intend to release this information in the articles that are to come in the future, therefore please make sure you read the articles released by the Tecpacking Group.

At present, the tea industry is experiencing an spike in demand, while the supply is low.Prices of tea has skyrocketed as a result since March 2020. While COVID 19 did play a role in the shortage in the global market, there has been a constant factor that has existed and contributed to the shortage. This factor is climate change. We will be searching and sharing any other information we have that leads to the shortage in the future, so please stay tuned. The impact of climate change on the global industry is not visible when doing a year on year comparison. However, climate change will be a good base for farmers and tea buyers to measure and project what can be expected in the future.

The global climate change will have a direct impact on the production of tea in the future. Unlike before, the temperatures and rainfalls have now become very unpredictable, while rising temperature due to rise in emission of greenhouse gases has had a negative impact on the production of tea. Also, too much rain has a negative impact on the quality of tea as the flavor gets dull.  

All of us may have heard about countries placing emphasis on the global climate change. United Nations have gone on to organize climate change conferences to highlight and address the issues at hand globally. This is a serious problem which affects the entire world and almost all the key industries globally.

Climate change is an impending key issue to our tea industry as well. As key stakeholders and leaders in the industry, we should make all the efforts to sustain and preserve the future of tea. The responsibility lies in all of our hands to save the tea industry for our future generations. All suppliers in the tea industry will need to ensure that environmentally friendly raw materials are used at all possible times. All the processes by the stakeholders in the industry will need to be re-evaluated and re-arranged to have the minimum negative impact on the environment.

Let us all join hands to protect this wonderful tea industry for our future generations!