Tea hit by hard weather

Tea doesn’t get spared. Whenever a calamity hits, the world of tea is also affected by it. Due to constant short precipitations and relative high temperatures since autumn 2009, big parts of southwestern China are suffering from a serious drought.

In parts of Yunnan (云南), Guizhou (贵州) and Sichuan (四川), all big tea producing provinces, water is short, which is harming the local agriculture. Crops are failing. As always in such cases, prices are rising as a consequence. Unfortunately, this won’t make up for the tea farmers’ losses.

For producers and consumers of Pu’er (普洱) tea, this is the last episode in a series of price instabilities. As a reaction to the 2009 bubble and its following burst, the Pu’er production was reduced as a price stabilisation and quality increase measure.

In the eastern provinces of Fujian (福建) and Zhejiang (浙江), it is the cold weather that is harming the tea plants and delaying the spring harvest.

Chinese sources: 雅安茶业：非常年份的非常机遇; 旱灾重创茶业 普洱茶价再现涨势