Tea Board suspends rubbish tea consignment

The Tea Board recently suspended a consignment of bad or ‘rubbish’ tea that was being prepared by a leading shipper to be exported to Pakistan.

A Tea Board official said a sample was obtained once the suspicious consignment was detected. On testing it was found that this consignment was of very inferior tea falling below the standards required by the Tea Board.

The official explained that tea for export should be procured through approved channels of sale which are the Colombo Tea Auction, private sale through brokers or through direct sale without brokers. “This particular consignment of tea has not been obtained through any of these channels” he said.

Pakistan is major market for Ceylon Tea but Sri Lanka lost the market on an earlier occasion due to bad tea being exported. “It is unfortunate that such things occur when the country is trying to recapture the market,” the official said.(LP)