Trade group set to wage tea battle

Press, 21 May 1982, Page 2

Trade group set to wage tea battle

The 25 -Trade Aid shops in New Zealand will now be able to sell tea packaged in Sri Lanka. Trade Aid has, since 1976, imported’bulk tea from Sri Lanka which has had to be Sickaged in New Zealand. ver the years Trade Aid has approached the Government repeatedly to be allowed to import tea packed by workers in Sri Lanka. This was because manual tea packing in Sri Lanka was labour intensive whereas in New Zealand it is machinepackaged. The first Trade Aid shipment of packaged tea from Sri Lanka was unloaded at its Christchurch warehouse yesterday, starting a campaign to capture 1 per cent of the New Zealand tea market. The general manager of Trade Aid (N.Z.), Mr Peter Elvy, said that a 1 per cent levy on every packet sold also went back to help the tea-picking Tamils. (Tamils

are descended from southern Indian immigrants z and comprise one-fifth of the Sri Lankan population). A Tamil picker earned about $4 in two. weeks on a plantation and most of the tea exported from Sri Lanka was packed in secondary countries such as New Zealand. “We drink so much tea and yet part of this is exploited labour,” Mr Elvy said. Trade Aid had been partly responsible for pressuring the Government into allowing the importing of packaged tea through an import licence tender scheme, but Mr Elvy said it was not relying on sympathy alone to sell the aproduct. The shipment of reed tea packets and tea bags, valued at more than 530,000, was probably the highest quality tea selling for the price in New Zealand, he said. Commercial pure tea had become scarcer since World War II because most brands were

blended with other cheaper teas. Even New Zealand taste buds had been taken into consideration, he said. The orange pekoe tea was sweeter than most brands, with a strong colour because New .Zealanders liked “a strong cup that you can stand a teaspoon in.” Another shipment was expected next month and Trade Aid also planned to promote community sales through its volunteer workers. The tea packers are a co-operative who are connected to the Tamil tea pickers.