honey bush tea - Department of Agriculture: Western Cape

Section 1.2.2. Although not popular because of too low volumes to be of economic
importance, but one could add a fourth category which would be white tea.
The most important tea producing countries are India, China, Kenya (normally referred
to by origin, Africa) and Sri Lanka. However, tea is also cultivated in minor quantities in
countries and regions such as Argentina, Brazil, Iran, Turkey, Vietnam, Korea,
Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, New Guinea, Mexico, USA, Corsica, the Azores and
Tuscany (Tee Gschwendner, 2001).
Tea production is an important economic factor in some countries. These include India
with the highest production followed by China. However, India stands in the fourth
position regarding tea exports; having Sri Lanka, Africa and China in the first three
ranks respectively (See figure 3). Countries like Sri Lanka continues to rely heavily on
the export market because domestic consumption uses only roughly 10% of production.
Figure 3 Production vs Exports, based on Walker, 2002
3.1.1 Tea major producing regions
During the year 2002 and 2003, tea crop in major producing countries increased by 36.5
million kilograms due to improvement in production of tea in India, Bangladesh, Kenya,
Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. However, production of tea in countries such as Sri
Lanka, Indonesia and Zimbabwe experienced a decline in 2003 (see Table 5).
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