This section contains:
Products: Black tea, Japanese green tea, Oolong
Year |
| Gross value of Prod’n | Exports | Imports |
2006-2007 | black | 1,808 | 2,484 | 88,879 |
2006-2007 | green | 0 | 725 | 8,618 |
Tea is produced from a shrubCamellia sinensis that can live for over a hundred years. It comes from harvesting of the new shoots of the shrub, usually consisting of two leaves and a bud. Traditionally tea has been handpicked but mechanical harvesters have also been developed.
Tea is consumed in three broad types — black, green and oolong. With black tea, processing involves crushing or tearing the leaves, exposing them to oxygen, causing a natural enzymatic (often called fermentation but actually oxidation) process. With green tea, the green leaves are typically steamed to stop any enzymatic process and then dried. With oolong tea, the processing is broadly the same as with black tea, except the period over which fermentation is allowed is shortened. Green tea makes up roughly 15 per cent of world tea consumption.
Over the last decade, Australian imports of black tea have been declining at an average 3.1 per cent a year but imports of green tea have been growing at 15.8 per cent a year. Over the three years to 2006-07, Australia’s annual imports averaged 13 700 tonnes of black tea and 870 tonnes of green tea. The total value of Australian tea imports was nearly $94 million a year over the same period.
India and China contribute more than half of the world’s tea production. World trade in black and green tea is worth more than US$2.04 billion and US$336 million a year, respectively.
With black tea, Sri Lanka, Kenya and India are the main exporters, and the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation the main importers. With green tea, China dominates world trade with a share of around 70 per cent, while the main importers are Morocco and Japan.
Tea is grown in Australia mainly in northern New South Wales and Queensland, with small areas planted specifically to green tea production in Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania. Queensland growers benefit from higher yields compared to New South Wales growers and account for nearly 90 per cent of Australian tea production.
The tea industry in Queensland and New South Wales is mainly oriented toward production of black tea but also produces ‘China style’ green tea. Most of Australia’s black tea production is sold on the domestic market and benefits in this highly competitive market from its ‘Made in Australia’ label. Despite this, the main Australian tea brands sell in the mid priced categories of tea in Australian supermarkets.
The main tea processors in Australia are Nerada and Madura. They package tea as leaf tea or tea bags, also using imported teas. Tea plantings in New South Wales and Queensland were around 616 hectares in 2007, including a plantation of 106 hectares in the northern rivers region of New South Wales that seems not to have produced commercially since late 2002.
In Australia, the Japanese green tea industry is located mainly in the Alpine Valleys region of Victoria but there are very small plantings that are not producing commercial quantities of green tea in Tasmania, New South Wales and Manjimup in Western Australia.
There are three harvest periods in each year in Victoria, corresponding to flushes of plant growth, starting around November. The yield and quality of green tea is highest with the November flush and declines with each subsequent harvest.
The Japanese market is a growing one due to health conscious consumers and innovations such as canned tea products. Japanese tea consumption is currently more than 100 000 tonnes but production is fairly static at around 90 000 tonnes and is not able to expand to meet the domestic shortfall.
