Çaykur produces 4% of the world total tea consumption . Being healthy and quality, Turkish tea is very much enjoyable and pleasurable…
Turkish tea is as famous as Turkish coffee, which is a well-known style in the world. Turkish tea, however, is consumed much more than coffee in the country. Usually, the host never asks if the guest wants it or not. Instead, they directly offer tea as it is an inevitable offering to please the guest.
There are some private producers in Turkey but state-owned Çaykur is the major one representing the industry in Turkey. It has a worldwide reputation in production and marketing a great deal of the world consumption. We conducted an exclusive interview with the manager of Çaykur. He gave very striking answers you may find interesting about the Turkish tea. Enjoy reading:
What are the outstanding features of Turkish tea?
Tea cultivation is carried over a 300,000- hectare area in 30 countries in the world and a total of 75,851 hectares in five provinces of Turkey (Rize 49,780 hectares, Trabzon 15,514 hectares, Artvin 8,575 hectares, Giresun 1,970 hectares and Ordu 11,4 hectares.). Turkey has also the largest tea farming area in the world that receives snowfall. Turkey is seventh in the world in the field of agriculture, fifth in the amount of production and fourth in the amount of consumption.
What are the outstanding features of Çaykur tea from other Turkish teas?
Çaykur means “Turkish tea.” We blend all the outstanding features of Turkish tea and offer them to our consumers. The Turkish tea, Çaykur, is the only tea covered by snow but is still protected from the negative effects of weather and insects. This is why we are successful and we are proud to supply 4% of the world’s tea production.
Can all Çaykur’s production be used? What are the levels of domestic consumption and export?
Çaykur made TL1.5 billion in revenue in 2012. It aims to expand its markets and develop new markets domestically and internationally with ice tea and new products in the coming year. Çaykur’s growth target for 2013 is 10%. Through marketing Turkish tea internationally in the best possible way, Çaykur exported 3,000 tons in 2012. In this context, and giving the utmost importance to international trade fairs, Çaykur participated in 19 fairs in 2012, in the first 6 months of 2013, participated in eight fairs in three continents and accelerated dealership negotiations. Currently exporting to 35 countries, Çaykur aims to export 50,000 tons to 100 countries by 2023.
There are innovations and trends in every sector. Are there such things in the tea sector too?
Healthy nutrition is the trend in Turkey and in the world. Therefore, we carry out work to spread organic farming as a new mode of production. At the moment, organic tea farming has reached 10,000 hectares throughout the world. In Rize, a 2,750-hectare area has been converted for organic farming. Our goal is to farm an 80,000-hectare area organically by 2023. We are also expanding our product range and have added ice tea to our product range and realized sales of 20 million units a month in Turkey.
How many types of tea does Çaykur produce?
Çaykur is the single buyer of more than half the tea produced in Turkey. Of 1.2 million tons of total production, Çaykur buys 650,000 tons and the private sector buys 550,000 tons. Çaykur production has four main categories: black tea (bulk tea, teabag and glass bag), green tea (bulk tea glass bag), organic tea (teabag and bulk tea), and ice tea (500ml bergamot, peach and lemon).
How do you respond to imported teas in Turkey? Is there a problem with it?
There is no problem with it. Three to four tons of tea is imported into Turkey but this amount has little impact on consumption of Turkish tea.
Are there any challenges in the sector?
One challenge that the sector faces is smuggled tea. The consumption of smuggled tea is high especially in the eastern provinces. To tackle this, we have researched ways to produce new teas that suit the taste of people in those provinces.
Tea has a great place in Turkish culture and traditions. Have you ever tried to introduce that culture to other nations?
In overseas trade fairs, we serve our tea in the traditional Turkish tea drinking way and try to promote it as much as we can. Other than that, we have many projects to promote Turkish tea culture abroad. We will present Turkish tea culture much more effectively in the coming period.
