Boost for Green Tea cultivation Chamikara Weerasinghe

COLOMBO: The Ministry of Plantation Industries will take steps to popularise “green tea” cultivation in Sri Lanka for export.

Plantation Industries Minister D.M. Jayaratne had requested regional plantation companies at a meeting held at the Talawakelle Tea Research Institute recently, to grow green tea to attract a wider international market.

The Secretary of the Plantation Industries Ministry, J.Abeywickrema said Sri Lanka’s present produce of green tea comes from a few areas, but they have a good market demand already.

Drinking green tea has become a popular habit in many parts of the world including countries like Japan, China and in some European countries, said Abeywickrema.

“Sri Lanka gets raw materials from other countries to produce green tea,” he said.

“Since Japan and many EU countries are concerned about the health aspect in any product, we are concerned about obtaining H.A.C.P certificate for Sri Lankan tea in due course.”

H.A.C.P certificate is likely to become an compulsory requirement to exporting tea to European countries in the future, he pointed out. “Getting the H.A.C.P certificate is a costly exercise which involves millions of rupees. Most of our tea factories have old machines. They had to be replaced with high-tech machines for the purpose of checking quality if these factories are to get H.A.C.P certificates,” the secretary explained.

He said the ministry will take steps to help the factories to import machines to upgrade their factories to obtain the H.A.C.P.

There are about 680 tea factories out of which 30 per cent need improvement, according to Abeywickrema.