Even though the weather has been favourable this year, the country\u2019s tea production is yet to hit its average production of 40 million kilogrammes.<\/p>\n
This was revealed on the sidelines of a tea day organised jointly by the Tea Association of Malawi (Taml) and the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) and the Sustainable Trade Initiative.<\/p>\n
The tea day was set aside to sensitise Malawians on the importance of drinking the beverage.<\/p>\n
Taml Chairman Sangwani Hara said tea production is behind that of last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough we are behind, there is potential to catch up with our production lines by June if we continue to experience wet weather,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hara said other tea producing countries like Kenya and India are also facing a similar problem of low production.<\/p>\n
\u201cKenya and India are also behind so, if we can catch up on production and global supply, we think we will be able to benefit from the gap that is there on the market,\u201d Hara said.<\/p>\n
During the tea day, different varieties of tea were showcased as companies in the sector engage a diversification drive.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrdinarily, we have been producing black tea as a country, but now, with the global demand, producers have diversified and are producing other varieties of tea like green tea, oolong and white tea.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy producing these teas, the producers are trying to cater for the demands on the market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Tea is scientifically known as camellia sinensis <\/em>and according to Hara, some producers are producing a product similar to tea but which is not tea at all.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at the contents on the packages, you will find that there is no camellia sinensis <\/em>in there. So, that is not tea and it\u2019s not a healthy drink,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Sustainable Trade Initiative Country Director Daisy Kambalame said Malawi produces the best tea and needs to increase its domestic consumption.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we would like to see is increased economic activity within the tea industry and the country as a whole. The more we consume tea, the more the growers will produce,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Kambalame also said tea is a beverage that can be taken at any time without regard to weather conditions.<\/p>\n \u201cTea is both a hot and cold beverage and can be taken anytime. It is, therefore, important that consumers should consider shifting from taking fizzy drinks and start taking tea,\u201d Kambalame said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Even though the weather has been favourable this year, the country\u2019s tea production is yet to hit its average production of 40 million kilogrammes. This was revealed on the sidelines of a tea day organised jointly by the Tea Association of Malawi (Taml) and the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) and the Sustainable Trade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":48011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48012,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48010\/revisions\/48012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}