NAIROBI – The 3rd African Tea Convention will take place in Nairobi, Kenya, from May 10th to 12th 2017. This year’s edition follows up the concept launched in Mombasa, Kenya in June 2011, followed by the 2nd event in Kigali, Rwanda in August 2014.
The African Tea market is strongly upgrading its profile, with consumption increasing steadily namely in the northern part of the continent and production now also focusing on some orthodox origin teas, whilst the main CTC output continues to represent the biggest share of the world tea exports, with 35% in 2015.
Amongst the East African tea producers Kenya is the number one ranking globally as the world’s number 3 tea producer, after China and India, with an output of 400,000 metric tonnes in 2015.
Given this important production volume it was in Kenya that the first African tea auction was launched in 1957, through the creation of the East African Tea Trade Association – EATTA – in the port town of Mombasa.
This initiative was taken in order to allow the tea producing countries to access the consumer markets directly from home, instead of going through the London Tea Auction as they had done since the introduction of tea growing by the British some 150 years ago.
Operating throughout the past 60 years the EATTA tea auction in Mombasa remains the biggest in the world with almost 360,000 tonnes of tea sold in 2015, followed by Colombo, Sri Lanka, with a sales volume of 317,000 tonnes in 2015. The members of EATTA are Burundi, Congo DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
The 3rd African Tea Convention has chosen the motto “Sustainable Tea Farming-an inspiring future for nature, health and rewarding livelihoods”, thus focusing on the tea industry’s great concerns about the issues of ever rising production costs, the need to ensure appropriate revenue for the smallholders and the threats of climate change.
During the recent years the tea market continues to shift, China supplying 43% of the global tea production today, traditional tea consumers like UK and Russia switching over to more coffee, rising domestic consumption in producing countries reducing export availabilities and new operators introducing new trade routes and skills, such as the Dubai Tea Trade Centre.
With the view to these changing patterns the convention will offer the stake holders a useful platform for many discussions.
The adjacent Tea Expo will allow to highlight the quality of African teas and showcase the new trends with the growing number of crafted specialty teas from Kenya, Malawi , Rwanda and those recently introduced from Tanzania by Wollenhaupt, Germany.
A worthwhile venue for the world’s tea operators.
www.africateaconvention.com
