Tea Board high-level tea delegation to Europe

Kolkata, May 16: In order to promote Darjeeling tea in European market, Tea Board will lead a high-level delegation to UK, Germany, France and Switzerland by the end of this month.

Tea Board Chairman Basudeb Banerjee said India exports quality tea to UK, Germany, France and Switzerland. These countries are all quality tea consuming market, who prefer Darjeeling tea.

The delegation aims to educate the tea industry in those countries about the techniques of distinguishing between spurious and real Darjeeling tea and increase awareness about this tea.

UK is an old consumer of Indian tea and has a office of Tea Board in London.

The delegation led by Mr Banerjee would have various industry leaders including Darjeeling Planter's Association Chairman Sanjay Bansal.

''We are yet to work out other modalities of the visit and the names of the delgation members,''he said.

The delegation would start its visit from UK.

The team would leave India in the last week of May and in the last leg of the tour it would participate in Tea and Coffee World Cup in Geneva from June 3 to 5.

'' We will also meet Champagne Association of Paris to understand the process of protecting IPR,''he said.

It would also meet various industry bodies like UK Tea Council in London, French Tea Council in Paris and German Tea Association.

With the exports touching 203 million last year, the Board had set a target of 210 million kgs this fiscal. To reach this target the Tea Board is targeting markets like Egypt and Pakistan.

In addition they are also exploring the opportunity to penetrate deep into markets like US, UK, Japan, Germany and France, which consume value-added quality tea including the Darjeeling one.

'' These countries are not bulk customers but prefer value for money,'' he said.

Besides increasing our traditional market like Russia, the Board is also trying to exploit these markets and is planning a delegation to America and Japan.

UNI