Halmari CTC tea pips own feat, breaks Rs 500 barrier

Kolkata:Halmari, the first among Assam varieties to find a place at the Harrods Top Tier Tea Gift Box, may soon be called the Sergey Bubka of CTC tea. The former Ukrainian pole-vault icon broke his own world record 16 times. The CTC (crush, tear and curl) tea produced on the plush plains of this Upper Assam estate has already surpassed its own feat four times in just two years. Late on Tuesday, it created history by vaulting past the Rs 500/kg barrier.
Nine sacks of Broken Pekoe (BP) CTC tea belonging to Halmari Tea Estate fetched a price of Rs 501/kg at an auction brokered by J Thomas & Co. The buyer was Prasad Tea, a tea-buying house in Siliguri. Last July, another Broken Pekoe variety of Halmari estate had fetched a record price of Rs 441/kg. The buyer then was Kolkata’s Sealdah Tea House. Only eight days before that, Halmari, owned by Kolkata-based Amarawati Tea Company, had grabbed eyeballs when another batch of its Broken Pekoe went for Rs 426 a kg.
“Of the nine or 10 CTC varieties that have gone for over Rs 400 a kg so far, seven are from Halmari,” owner Amit Daga told TOI.
Dissecting the character of the record-breaking tea, Krishan Katiyal, CMD of city-based J Thomas & Co, the world’s largest tea auctioneer, said: “This tea is of surprisingly excellent quality for an early second flush variety. The liquor is smooth, full, sweet, malty and mellow.”
Katiyal added that he expects more such good quality tea from Halmari as “the garden’s quality is on an upward curve”.
Daga feels he is lucky to be the owner of one of the “best-placed gardens on earth”. Located 28km from Dibrugarh town, the 374-hectare estate boasts a rich loamy soil suited to produce high quality tea from pedigree clones.
“I also congratulate my whole team for the feat. The courage of the buyer is also commendable to say the least. Preparing such a clientele is not an easy job. It seems the Indian consumers are graduating to the next level for quality tea,” he said.
Stressing on the need to maintain quality, the Halmari owner said: “We are 100% EU-compliant as we export to European clients. But I have no idea why the brand is getting so much value for the past 20-25 years.”
Over 1,000 people work at the Halmari estate to produce around 9.5 lakh kg tea a year.
Bharat Arya, director & CEO of J V Gokal & Co, one of the largest exporters of tea in India, lauded the efforts put in by Halmari, saying the owner must be treating his tea leaves like his baby. “They handle it very well. Thus the tea forms a nice thick cup. It is brisk, strong with a gutty liquor. Basically the garden’s raw material is good.”
Speaking from Siliguri, Raju Prasad, owner of Prasad Tea, said the CTC tea that he bought was better than most Darjeeling varieties although one should not compare between the two. “I paid a good price for an excellent batch of tea. This particular tea is mild and bright bodied. It strikes the taste buds as and when one sips it,” he said.
Prasad has already found buyers for his latest batch. “It will be divided into two parts. One will travel to a Maharashtra seller. The other lot will be sold in the Siliguri market. It is all set to fetch Rs 650-700 a kg in the market,” he said
If you think this is not a big price to pay, think again. Unlike Darjeeling, which goes for thousands per kg and has a select clientele, the CTC caters to the mass market and India is the world’s largest consumer in the category, running through 1,080 million kg of CTC tea in 2015-16. Of the country’s total tea production of around 1,200 million kg last year, CTC accounts for almost 90%.
Asked whether Indian consumers are prepared to pay good price for quality tea, Prasad said, “Today’s tea aficionados are confident about quality. So, they don’t mind paying for it.”