Naga tea fetches record price

Guwahati, Aug 28: 'Naga Tea', produced in Nagaland, have started fetching record prices giving 'Asom tea' a real run for money.

In the recent auctions 'Naga Tea' have been attracting record price, heralding a new era in tea production of the "industry-starved" state.

The 'Naga tea,' manufactured by Nagaland Tea Factory, have attracted second highest price in Guwahati Tea Auction last week.

Tea auction officials said the spurt in price and interest in Nagaland tea would have tremendous impact on the actual ground.

Most of the farmers have shifted towards exclusive tea cultivation in Nagaland instead of mixed crops.

The 'Naga tea' has similar taste and flavour like to Darjeeling, sources said.

Farmers in districts like Phek and Mon would soon be competing in terms of quality with neighbouring Asom.

The history of 'Naga tea' dates back to days of the British Raj when the Konyaks had impressed them by serving the red concoction from Mon area. However, the practice of growing tea was limited within home gardens and domestic use. For the last couple of years though farmers have been including tea as a major cash crop and some of them were even going exclusive on tea cultivation.

''Since 1995, the area under tea cultivation has substantially increased,'' said a senior secretary of the Wastelands and Horticulture department.

Sources said there were more than 1000 small tea growers in Nagaland and the number is increasing. The speed of switching to tea from mixed crops has been accelerating since 1995.

Currently, Seonyang has 300 hectares of tea gardens. The price fetched by the farmers, however, is not satisfactory.

''People are actually new to this crop and do not know about the market dynamics or quality differences,'' Hon Loi, a farmer, said adding that he was planning to come up with a tea factory for better profits.

Farmers like him are few and most others are untrained in the skill of plucking. Tea plucking is a sensitive matter. For instance, the finest Darjeeling tea is one that comes from the timely plucking of two tender leaves and a bud. In Mon, due to lack of much awareness farmers lose out on the plucking time. But they enjoy other advantages compared to those in Asom.

Organic farming is the order in Nagaland and climate is different than Asom. Due to different climatic conditions farmers said the time for the tea plant to mature is only a year compared to the four years in Assam.

Now, NEPED (Nagaland Empowerment of People through Environment Development), which is an Indo-Canadian venture to develop sustainable development, is bringing about some changes. As a result, even smaller farmers were taking up community farming in which tea is selected as the major crop.

UNI