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Tea as Exporting Item

Tea is the secondly most drank beverage in the world after the water. The countries where are not suitable for tea cultivation export tea from other tea growing countries. Many part of North Africa, Arabic countries, countries in Middle Asia are covered with the desert, where makes difficult for vegetable cultivation. For the people live those places, green tea is an important source of Vitamin C. Gun powder (kind of green tea) and dancha (compressed tea) have been popularly drank in those area. Currently, China export 90% of their total tea production to other countries. China is the secondly largest tea exporting country, and their total sum on exporting tea is ranked as third of the world. The habit of tea drinking was not introduced to Europe and America untill the 17th century. In Europe, tea has never became very popular among their preference of drinking coffee and cocoa. However, in England and the U.S. the habit of drinking tea spread widely and teas started to play the important role of their life. For centuries China was the world's only tea-exporting country. As a consequence of sudden popularity of tea and taxation led to the Boston Tea Party in the 18th century, and "the opium war" in the 19th century. In the late 19th century, tea plantation in the colonial countries started to produce stable amount of tea, and Japan opened the national isolation, and started tea exporting. This was also the time when Chinese monopolize on tea has finally ended. During Meiji era, Japan widely expanded tea production for the world demand. Japan produced Chinese breed green tea such as Gunpowder, Chunmi, and Soumi for the exporting items. The tea factory for those exporting tea were located near the ports, and the final process and inspection were usually done by Chinese. At the time, Japan also started to produce black tea for exporting to England. Before the world warâ…¡, Japanese tea was produced more for the exporting reason, especially to the U.S. Surprisingly, in the early 20th century, Japan was ranked as the largest tea supplying countries in the U.S. After the war, once the large amount of Gun powder was exporting to North Africa around 1955, and then Japan has stopped exporting large amount of tea to other countries. Because of the rapid economic growth, Japan was no longer able to compete the tea prices other countries were offering on the world market. Japan shifted their tea production for the domestic consumption. Around this time, the colonial countries of England declared independence one after another, and England lost its power on controlling the world tea market. In June 1998, London tea market were finally came to the closure. In the present day, major tea exporting countries are, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, countries in East Africa, England, China, Indonesia, and Holland. Germany and South American countries have also joined as tea exporting countries. The countries such as Germany, England and Holland can not grow teas in their countries, however they produce one of the finest blend teas and provide great varieties of different kind of tea including low-caffeine tea, flavored tea, and herbal tea. In 90th, people became more conscious about their health and the diet. People started to prefer to drink organic tea. Also, the reputation of green tea's positive effects on health lead people to drink more green tea. In 1995, the EU standard on remaining chemicals on tea was set. Since standard was not very suitable for Japanese tea growing situation, many Japanese grown teas did not pass the criterion. Not only the price but also from this reason, Japanese teas became difficult to export. However, the green tea produced in India and Sri Lanka are certified by EU standard, and containing high catechine, thus their tea exporting has been increasingly. In China, most of the tea are produced for exporting reason, and they switched the captivating method to match the EU standard. In recent years, several countries have attempted to export their green tea to the Japanese tea market and also to the Europe and North American market. The production of green tea has increased significantly to meet the world's new trend.

(Kotaro Tanimoto)