On the go and fancy a quick cuppa without the hassle of brewing it?

As part of its tea diversification drive, the Tocklai Tea Research Institute has introduced green tea concentrate and black tea for those constantly on the go.

The products were shown at the Council meeting of the Tea Research Association in Calcutta recently and the industry has liked it.

“These products are intended to serve up a quick and flavourful cup of tea with minimum fuss, yet retaining the qualities of a conventionally brewed cuppa,” the director of the institute, A.K. Barooah told The Telegraph.

The bottles are a 100ml each. The products were developed by Manoranjan Goswami and R.C. Gogoi of Tocklai.

Barooah said such diversification initiatives augur well for the tea industry that has lately been resisting several sustainability challenges. “A case in point is the receding appeal of tea amongst the younger generations. Tea faces stern competition from other popular beverages that are often backed by aggressive marketing strategies,” he added.

He said a business plan was being made.

Barooah said diversification of tea products through value addition is a promising approach to counter this receding popularity of tea. “A wide range of diversified tea byproducts could potentially widen the consumer base and the demand by making tea more attractive to the younger generations,” he added.

He said India is primarily strong in the black tea segment and though a few enterprising conventional producers have looked into other variants like green tea and white tea, not much has gone into exploration beyond the specialty teas.

“Tocklai’s attempts have seen the development of tea tablets and tea colas, thought their commercialisation was not taken up. Recent focus of the institute is on development of a host of trendy tea byproducts such as green and black instant tea with better quality and shelf life, green and black tea concentrates, premixes as well as tea bioactive-based soft drinks,” he added.

D.P. Maheshwari of Jayashree Tea said the products are good and convenient while the deputy chairman of Tea Board of India, A.K. Ray, said the quality is good.

A Study on Domestic Consumption of Tea in India said the penetration of tea in the kids segment, below 12 years of age, which on an average comprises 25 per cent of the overall population, is almost negligible.

“With increasing number of families having working couples or individuals staying away from their families, convenience of preparation is an important aspect. Keeping this is mind, there is a potential for ready-to-drink tea (RTD) which needs to be properly tapped. RTD tea is expected to grow about 5 per cent over the next four to five years, which is higher than the expected growth rate of normal tea,” the report said.

Tea consumption in India stands at 0.78 kg. per person in comparison to other countries in the world, Turkey (3.2kg), Morocco (1.86k), UK (1.58kg) and even neighbouring countries like Pakistan (0.81kg) and China (1.31kg).