Climate change and rising costs challenge Turkish tea producers

Lazika Çay

On average, people in Turkey drink more tea than in any other country in the world.

But climate change and rising costs are threatening the country’s favourite cuppa.

Almost all of Turkey’s tea harvest comes from a chain of mountains and upland plateaus that fringe the country’s temperate Black Sea region, with planting dominated by varieties giving a dark and strong flavoured brew.

The taste is much valued at home but less so for international palettes accustomed to the milder Chinese or Indian strains.

Black Sea weather patterns are shifting, and the region is becoming dryer and hotter. 

“Climate change is harming tea production due to rising temperatures; tea loves rain and humidity,” says Mustafa Yılmaz Kar, secretary general of the Turkish Tea Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association.

“To offset losses in production more areas have to be planted.”

Turks each consume 3.16kg of tea leaves a year. That is some 40 percent more than perhaps the best known tea drinkers, the British, who only manage to get through 1.82kg each per year, placing them third behind Turkey and Ireland.

Turkey is, as a result, one of the world’s biggest tea producers, ranked fifth behind China, India, Kenya and Sri Lanka, processing around 270,000 tonnes of dry leaves each year. But Turkish tea exports are limited, given the taste and strength and relatively high production costs.

With increased urbanisation and industrialisation of Turkey’s Black Sea provinces, tea producers are also increasingly having to compete with people for suitable arable land.

Rising input prices for fuel, fertiliser and labour are only adding to production costs, threatening sales at home and limiting exports still further.

Last year, Turkey exported $20 million of tea, and much of this was to where there are large Turkish expatriate communities pining for a taste of home, as in Germany, says Kar.

“Our tea has a stronger taste,” says Kar. “We [Turks] are used to this, and it is how it has been served in our homes and tea houses for decades.”

As a result, some new and established Turkish tea producers are branching out into herbal and flavoured teas, which are gaining traction at home and even abroad.

“These segments are the most rapidly growing market in the sector,” Emre Erçin, co-founder and general manager of tea producer Lazika Çay, told AGBI.

“There is a significant potential but one has to work at it.”

That work is beginning to bear fruit. Though only representing a fraction of domestic production, Lazika now accounts for around 5 percent of Turkish tea exports, shipping to 15 countries, Erçin says. It also supplies tea for the Asia-Pacific outlets of coffee chain Gloria Jean’s.

“You have to get to know the country and shape your product according to their needs,” he said. “No one but Turks would buy a kilo of tea.”