A rare Assam tea auctioned at Rs 50000 per kg sets new record

There was a time when the 200-year old tea industry of Assam was going through a rough phase, but then, a rare variety of handmade tea from the Manohari Tea Estate brought in the ray of hope when it was auctioned for Rs. 50,000 a kg at the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre (GTAC) recently. With this, it has set a new record. The GTAC has confirmed that this is the highest recorded price for any variety of Assam tea.

The winning tea, marketed as the Manohari Gold Tea is made from small buds and not tea leaves. The tea is grown out of a special variety of finest clone called 'P-126', which is not readily available. For this variety, the tea leaves are plucked very early in the morning and only 5 kilograms are yielded in a year.

Very few people know that last year the same variety was auctioned for Rs. 39,001 per kilogram, but it was from the Donyi Polo Tea Estate in Arunachal Pradesh. Later, it was sold for Rs. 40,000 per kilogram at the auction.

If reports are to be believed, in 2018, India saw a record tea production of 1,325.1 million kilograms and interestingly, over half of the total produce (630 million kg) was from Assam alone.