After orthodox tea, Nepal’s tea regulating body is set to issue a quality trademark for CTC tea.

The crush, tear, curl (CTC) tea commonly includes most black tea varieties.

“We have prepared draft guidelines, which are in the final stages of completion to give the CTC tea a quality trademark recognition,” said Deepak Khanal, director of the National Tea and Coffee Development Board.

“It may take 4-5 months,” he said, adding that once the certification is issued, it may boost the quality resulting in higher export of Nepali CTC tea in the international market.

In September 2020, Nepal's orthodox tea got its own trademark, 157 years after the country started growing it.

The trademark includes the words 'Nepal Tea Quality from the Himalayas'. It was launched two years ago and formally executed on September 22, 2020. It was the first brand of agricultural produce in the country.

The distinction between the CTC and orthodox teas lies in their processing methods.

In the orthodox method, a traditional method is used. This includes plucking leaves, withering, and rolling, along with oxidation and drying.

The CTC process is quite different. Tea leaves are crushed, torn and curled into tiny, hard green pellets. They are then placed in blowers, which hasten their oxidation so that the pellets turn dark brown.

Nepal grows two types of tea: Camellia assamica or CTC tea which grows at lower altitudes and in the hot and humid plains of Nepal, primarily in Jhapa district. This tea accounts for almost 95 percent of domestic consumption owing to its lower cost of production.

Camellia sinensis or orthodox tea is grown at altitudes of 900 to 2,100 metres. Four eastern hill districts—Ilam, Panchthar, Dhankuta and Tehrathum—in the eastern hills are known for producing quality orthodox tea.

Orthodox tea production uses only top-quality tea leaves and buds. Its quality is higher, and so is the price tag.

The major market for Nepali CTC tea is India. Nepal exports around 90 percent of its orthodox tea and 50 percent of its CTC tea tea to India.

Indian producers have been alleging that Nepal’s tea is substandard and sold at lower prices and this is hurting India's tea production.

Nepali tea, according to traders, is in big demand globally apart from India, but measures like sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) are a barrier to Nepali exports.

Importing countries have been expressing concerns over pesticide residue in the tea traded from India and Nepal, according to a South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment report.

“As Nepal has been facing hurdles in exporting CTC tea time and again, particularly to India, the quality trademark would ensure the products meet quality standards for export,” said Khanal.

“We decided to issue a quality trademark following the request from tea growers and traders,” said Khanal.

Experts say that effective standards would benefit local producers compelled to sell their produce at lower prices due to low quality.

The board said it would prepare a code of conduct and a set of guidelines that should be followed by the growers, including during the processing and packaging of the tea.

The code of conduct includes instructions for producing green leaves, and ensuring safe transportation of plucked tea leaves to collecting centres and factories.

The code of conduct will also include a list of chemical fertilisers that can be used and instructions to be followed to ensure food purity while producing and packaging.

“Once the guidelines are finalised, we will issue a notice inviting tea producers to apply for the quality trademark,” said Khanal.

The board will analyse the documents and conduct field visits to tea gardens and factories before deciding to issue a quality trademark, he said. “We provide a licence after the inspection, and the producers can sell tea by using the quality trademark logo,” said Khanal.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development will endorse the final guidelines.

Nepali tea is being stopped at different border points under different pretexts. India has been alleging Nepali tea is sub-standard and disrupting its exports time and again.

In 2018, 11 trucks carrying tea were stopped at the Indian customs in Panitanki for a week over quarantine issues. Again in 2020, over a dozen trucks carrying Nepali tea were stranded over the bridge of the Mechi River for days.

The Darjeeling Tea Association, for a long time, had been requesting its government to stop the import of Nepali tea.

There have been several attempts by Darjeeling to stop the import of Nepali tea.

India has been marketing Nepali products as its own, under the Darjeeling tea brand and sending them to countries like Europe and the US, according to Nepali traders. Traders have been saying that India buys Nepali tea at a cheaper rate and sends it to third countries at a high price, said a tea trader.

In October 2022, India lifted an 11-month-old ban on blending Darjeeling tea with other teas, raising the spirits of the Nepali tea industry which is heavily dependent on exports to the southern neighbour.

Nepal's Rs5-billion tea sector suffered a major blow as shipments plunged after India issued the restriction in November 2021 in a bid to protect its domestic industry.

After the ban was lifted, it allowed Indian tea producers to mix Nepali tea with their products, but prohibited use of the name “Darjeeling” on the mixture.

This Geographical Indication label is a symbol given to items associated with a specific place or origin, and it cannot be put on tea not cultivated in their gardens or manufactured by the standards outlined on the code of practice, according to reports.

“The quality trademark of Nepali tea, after its issuance, will improve the overall value chain of Nepali CTC tea,” Khanal said. “It will also prove that Nepali CTC tea is not substandard, as claimed.”

“This will benefit Nepali tea growers ultimately as prices will increase,” said Khanal.

Domestic consumers will also get quality CTC tea with a quality trademark.

The board has started work on designing the logo and has published a notice to submit a design for a quality trademark to the board.

According to the board, 33 tea estates have already obtained quality trademarks for orthodox tea.

According to the Department of Customs, Nepal exported 16,594 tonnes of tea worth Rs3.93 billion in the last fiscal year.

Nepal produces 26,379 tonnes of tea annually on over 20,237 hectares. Of these, 18,902 tonnes is CTC tea, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture.