Fair Trade Tea

Although market prices for tea have reach historical highs in 2009-2010, absolute prices are stage with or below where they were 30 years ago.

Although market prices for tea have reached Tea historical highs in 2009-2010, absolute prices are level with or below where they were 30 years ago. At the same time, producers face important increases in living costs due to food price inflation, reduced crops/yields and reduction of local currency versus the dollar.

After water, tea is the most popular drink in the world with 70,000 cups drunk per 2nd. Like cocoa, sugar and coffee, tea is in many ways a trace of colonial times. Many tea plantations in India, Sri Lanka, and East Africa were at first established during the British Empire.

Internationally, perhaps as many as 50 million people are involved in the tea production in many of the world’s least developed countries. Tea is generally grown on plantations and less classically by small scale farmer cooperatives.