Latin America interested in Ceylon Tea
Tea globally has great potential when promoted as a health drink as there are many benefits for health.
In a recent interview with the Business Times (BT) Diego Morlachetti, Director, Argentine Tea School in Argentina, said their local beverage, is ‘Yerba Mate’, but it is harmful to the health as it contains a lot of caffeine which could cause nervousness and other health complications.
Therefore, promotion of Ceylon Tea in the Latin American countries could definitely find a niche market.
A 31-member delegation from six Latin American countries – Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay and Colombia arrived in Sri Lanka recently to attend a Spanish Language tea training session in Colombo, and to explain the details of the programme a media briefing was held last week at the Ceylon Tea Board in Colombo.
As a part of the programme the delegation visited the Ceylon Tea Board to learn about the processes in Ceylon Tea before they are exported.
Mr. Morlachetti said that the present import of tea to Latin American countries from countries like China, India, Taiwan and Sri Lanka would be around 3 million kgs and out of this Sri Lanka’s exports would be around 30 per cent.
He said that with his promotional strategy the process a 10 fold increase is expected of Sri Lanka tea exports to the Latin American countries within the next 4 to 5 years.
He said that what is lacking in their countries is how to properly prepare tea and therefore the Argentine School of tea would extensively develop training their people in proper preparation of tea. He said that annually they would be enrolling more than 1,000 people from Latin American countries.
He brought the business delegation to initiate business interests in buying Ceylon Tea. He said that their companies usually export tea to countries like US and Europe, but at the same time they are interested in importing tea in bulk, add value and re-export to other countries.
Lumbini Tea Factory (Pvt) Ltd facilitated the programme and Chaminda Jayawardana, Managing Director, Lumbini Tea said that they export their tea to six different countries and said that most tea exports from Sri Lanka are to countries like Russia and the Middle East and these countries are volatile.
He said that Chile is a 100 per cent tea drinking country, but ‘Ceylon Tea’ is not going there direct and that they should find a way to export tea direct to that country. He said that Sri Lanka Tea should find new markets too and Latin America could be a potential new market.