Indian tea to come under one brand

JORHAT: The Tea Board has decided to on focus Indian tea under one brand and launch aggressive marketing in five big markets to increase sale. "We talk of Assam, Darjeeling and Nilgiri teas but as a whole Indian tea is not focused. Its high time we focus Indian tea under one umbrella as one brand," Tea Board Deputy Chairperson Roshni Sen said here today. Speaking on the concluding day of the three-day World Tea Science Congress, Sen said the Tea Board's main focus in the 12th Plan was to brand Indian tea under one umbrella and one logo. "We will give permission for the premium teas to use the logo." As the country was losing out major markets due to inadequate promotions, she said, an aggressive programme called "555" would be introduced five focus countries for five years and for five identified activities. "The five countries are Russia, Kazakhstan, USA, Iraq and Egypt which are the biggest buyers of Indian tea. We want to build up a Brand India image there because though they are buying tea from India but branding of our tea has really not happened," she said. Dan Bolton, a tea expert from the USA, said the movement for popularising Indian tea needed more investments and stress should be on quality for the retailers to tell their customers about the quality of tea they were selling. Assam Chief Sectary Naba Kumar Das, speaking as the chief guest at the closing function, said, small tea growers needed to be given special attention for quality control. He called upon the traditional tea growing countries to share their experiences with the small tea growers.