Eatta participated in the 3rd Global Dubai Tea forum and Mr. Brian Ngwiri Marketing Manager EATTA brings you the keynote activities and events during this successful conference in the Tea Industry.

This year more than 300 delegates attended the event.  EATTA was represented by its Managing Director Dr. Kipkirui Arap Lang’at and the Marketing Manager Mr. Brian Ngwiri. While at the forum EATTA made very important contacts that we intend to develop and make use of for the benefit of our members. More on this will be shared later.

Key note speakers at the forum included Ms. Sicily Kariuki of Tea Board of Kenya who gave a presentation contrasting large scale plantation and small scale tea growers and the different challenges each faces.

Mr. Ali Abdirizack of Kenya Tea Development Agency was invited as a panelist and he gave a presentation on the history of Kenya Tea Development Agency. One of the interesting facts he gave was that in 1964 KTDA started with 20 thousand farmers growing tea and by 2009, KTDA had 520 thousand farmers growing tea. In 1964 KTDA produced 20 million kilograms of tea. By 2009 this had grown tenfold to 200 million kilograms.

A very interesting presentation given was by Mr. Manuja Peiris the Chief Executive of the International Tea Committee. He elaborated on various economic and social factors, such as food price inflation and worker welfare, which would have a bearing on the global tea trade and consumption patterns. He also gave a breakdown of the new areas of growth based on the per capita consumption of tea. The global per capita consumption of tea is 53 grams. Africa has a per capita consumption of 290 grams, Europe 450 grams and the CIS countries 900 grams. When it comes to countries, the number one position of tea consumption was in dispute with both Turkey and UK laying claim to the honour. Depending on who you get your facts from UK consumes on average 2.5 kilograms of tea per person followed by Turkey at 2.4 and third Ireland at 1.5. 

Among other highlights of the event were a tea-tasting session Kenyan tea organised by Tea Board of Kenya.

While in Dubai, H.E. Bishar Abdirahman Hussein – The Ambassador of Kenya to United Arab Emirates led a delegation to visit Dubai Tea Trade Center. This visit was organised by the Tea Board of Kenya in collaboration with the Kenya embassy. Dr. Lang’at and Mr.  Ngwiri represented EATTA, Sicily Kariuki, Francis Ongwae and James Ngugi represented Tea Board of Kenya.  Ms. Alice Kithika of One Touch Limited and Mr. John Nguluu of Karirana.

They met the Chief executive of Dubai Tea Trade Center Mr. Sanjay Sethi who made a passionate plea on the need for African tea producers to make use of the Dubai Tea Trade Centre as a forward holding warehouse for African tea that can easily be shipped to Asian and Middle East destinations. The Dubai Tea Trade Centre also houses state of the art blending and packaging equipment. A great benefit of the centre is that they warehouse tea for up to 60 days without charge. They can also package tea on a clients behalf and they provide the envelope, stitch and string at a cost $ 1.50 per kilo of tea.  

Mr. Sethi informed the guests that currently they were processing 7 million kilograms of Kenyan Tea per year. We need to look at Dubai Tea Trade Centre critically and decide if it is beneficial to our members or a threat.