{"id":107187,"date":"2025-01-07T10:03:41","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T10:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/01\/07\/high-quality-kenyan-tea-attracts-good-prices-at-auction\/"},"modified":"2025-01-07T10:03:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T10:03:41","slug":"high-quality-kenyan-tea-attracts-good-prices-at-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/high-quality-kenyan-tea-attracts-good-prices-at-auction\/","title":{"rendered":"High quality Kenyan tea attracts good prices at auction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Farmers and factories producing high-quality tea are set to enjoy better prices as the auction followed quality with \u201cGood\u201d to \u201cMedium\u201d categories attracting more competitive bids and considerably higher prices<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tea Board of Kenya (TBK) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Willy Mutai\u00a0said that during October 2024, tea offered for sale by the smallholder tea factories\u00a0managed by KTDA, whose quality is relatively higher fetched an average price of 2.83\u00a0USD (approximately Sh366) per Kg for the main grades compared to 2.78 USD (approximately Sh360) recorded during the same period in 2023.<\/p>\n

Mutai explained that \u201cLower Medium\u201d and \u201cPlainer\u201d teas and secondary grades attracted either less interest and thus discounted prices or no offers and consequently constituted the highest proportion of teas on offer at the auction that was withdrawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepending on the quality band, the leaf grades generally attracted\u00a0relatively higher prices than the dust and secondary grades, respectively,\u201d said Mutai.<\/p>\n

He disclosed that auction sales volume for Kenya tea during October stood at 32.58 million\u00a0Kgs, which was lower compared to 38.63 million kg recorded during the\u00a0corresponding month of 2023.<\/p>\n

Mutai said that though there was generally good demand for tea offered at the auction, the prices\u00a0continued to be impacted negatively by relatively higher supply.<\/p>\n

He said that the demand for tea at\u00a0the auction continued to be affected by the effects of global economic shock\u00a0experienced in most countries due to the Russia-Ukraine crisis and market access\u00a0challenges owing to internal conflict in Sudan as well as shipment disruptions through\u00a0the Red Sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has continued to affect the sale of certain grades of tea at the auction\u00a0leading to lower absorption. However, compared to the previous months,\u00a0absorption for teas offered under the main catalogue was fairly good at 69%. During\u00a0the month, Pakistan packers were active but selective in their buying while the\u00a0Egyptian and South Sudan packers had good interest,\u201d said Mutai.<\/p>\n

According to the CEO, during the month of October, the volume of specialty teas produced was 710,560 Kgs,\u00a0which represented 2% of the total production. Specilality teas were dominated by\u00a0Orthodox teas at 92% (651,527.90 Kgs) and was largely produced by Estates and\u00a0Independents tea factories, respectively. The rest of Specilality teas consisted of Green\u00a0and Purple tea produced by the Cottage tea industries.<\/p>\n

He added that tea production for October 2024 dropped by 2.73 million Kgs from 52.79\u00a0million Kgs recorded during the same period of last year to 50.06 million Kgs.<\/p>\n

Mutai said that lower\u00a0production was attributed to generally low and poorly distributed rainfall experienced\u00a0within the country explaining that though the month of October marks the onset of the \u201cShort-rains\u201d\u00a0season, the amount of rainfall recorded in most parts of the tea growing areas was\u00a0depressed (near-to-below average precipitation for the month of October).<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the month of October 2024, most of the tea growing areas within the West\u00a0of Rift experienced low to moderate rainfall of between 9mm to 38 mm daily with the\u00a0exception of Kericho and Nandi, respectively, which recorded higher precipitation ranging from 20 to 73 mm daily. However, precipitation within the tea growing areas\u00a0in the East of Rift was relatively lower compared to the West of Rift at between 1 mm\u00a0to 35 mm daily,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The CEO highlighted that cumulatively up to the month of October, production for the year 2024 was higher by\u00a06.5% (30.21 million Kgs) from 465.01 million Kgs recorded during the first ten months\u00a0of 2023 to 495.23 million Kgs.<\/p>\n

He said that higher production was due to favourable weather recorded during the first four months of the year, with rainfall ranging from near-to-\u00a0above the long-term average amounts compared to the trend for the same period over\u00a0the years owing to\u00a0El-Nino\u00a0<\/em>weather phenomenon.<\/p>\n

The total export volume for the month of October 2024 was lower by 9.04% (4.33 million Kgs) from 47.96 million Kgs recorded in the same period last year to 43.63 million Kgs.<\/p>\n

Mutai said that this was despite shipments to more export destinations at 61 compared to fifty-six 56 for the same period of last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cLower export volume\u00a0was attributed to less exports to the traditional and emerging markets, with Pakistan\u00a0recording less imports by 4.71 million Kgs while exports to Egypt were lower by 2.63\u00a0million Kgs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mutai said that despite lower volume, Pakistan maintained its position as the leading\u00a0export destination for Kenya tea having imported 13.10 million Kgs, which accounted\u00a0for 30% of the total export volume. Egypt was the second largest export destination\u00a0having imported 6.22 million Kgs and was followed by UK (3.80 million Kgs); UAE (2.87\u00a0million Kgs); Russia (2.77 million Kgs); India (2.37 million Kgs); Sudan (1.60 million\u00a0Kgs); Poland (1.23 million Kgs); China (1.09 million Kgs); and Saudi Arabia (0.69\u00a0million Kgs).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post High quality Kenyan tea attracts good prices at auction<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Farmers and factories producing high-quality tea are set to enjoy better prices as the auction followed quality with \u201cGood\u201d to \u201cMedium\u201d categories attracting more competitive bids and considerably higher prices Tea Board of Kenya (TBK) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Willy Mutai\u00a0said that during October 2024, tea offered for sale by the smallholder tea factories\u00a0managed by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}