Tea is the second most popular drink in the world, only next to water. The tea industry is worth billions of dollars. Sri Lanka and India are the world’s largest manufacturers of black as well as green tea. Thousands of tonnes of tea are exported from these two countries to various countries in the world. China has risen as the greatest competitor to these two countries, because it has a very low cost of production.
Despite being such a big market, the tea industry is facing losses in millions of dollars. This is because of the increase in the wages that the labourers are demanding in tea plantations. The second reason is that buyers are asking for tea for half the cost of production. This is resulting in tea planters shelling out money from their own pocket to produce tea.
Not a lot of governments are doing anything to help the tea industry. However the Food Department of the UN has taken steps to help with funding for several plantations running on a loss. If nothing is done about this situation, it could result in the closing down of several tea plantations. The world would then be short of tea to drink.