Tea industry debates 'national drink' status for beverage

"Coffee or other beverages will always have their own respective market shares and declaration of tea as national drink can in no way be at the cost of coffee," North East Tea Association Chairman Bidyanand Barkakoty said.

He was reacting to Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia's recent statement in the Rajya Sabha.

Scindia had said that a proposal to declare tea as the national drink of India was earlier examined during 2006 in consultation with the Central Ministries/Departments concerned and the States/UTs.

"The matter was not pursued further as objections were raised by some of the State Governments and it was felt that coffee is a competing beverage and both have respective market shares and declaring one particular beverage as a 'national drink' will likely be at the cost of the other," Scindia had said.

Barkakoty queried, "Was the declaration of mango as national fruit at the cost of apple or other fruits? Was the declaration of tiger as the national animal at the cost of bear or other animals?"

He said 83 per cent of households in India consumed tea while its penetration of tea was in the range of 96 per cent to 99 per cent in both urban and rural areas of the country and probably no other beverage in the world had such high level of penetration.

The annual tea production in the country is 988 million kgs while the annual coffee production is 302 million kgs; the annual tea consumption is 815 million kgs, while coffee consumption is 108 million kgs and the per capita consumption of coffee in India is 75 gms whereas per capita consumption of tea is 730 gms, he said. MORE