Goodricke’s white tea fetches above Rs 27,000/kilo at Tea Board’s special auction

There are a whole lot of Indian connoisseurs, especially in eastern India, for such handcrafted delicate variety and this could be the reason the Kolkata and the Siliguri based bidders paid the highest price for the finest of varieties, Asthana said.

Tea Board of India’s special auction for one bud two leaf tea, plucked on the International Tea Day, fetched a record price of Rs 27,560 per kg. Siliguri based Golden Tea House picked up 2 kgs of the handcrafted white tea plucked from Goodricke’s Badamtam garden in Darjeeling, leading to a price discovery of a never before range.

The auction price commanded a near 450% premium with the reserve price for the variety kept at Rs 6,000 a kg.

The Orthodox tea from the Chauba garden in Assam fetched the second highest price of Rs 24,010 a kg in the special e- auction with the Kolkata based Golden Tips Tea Company picking up the same quantity.

For the CTC variety Goodricke’s Amgoorie Tea garden got the highest price of Rs 2,510 a kg with the Kolkata based Uniworld Tea Cheers being the buyer.

Goodricke Group’s managing director and CEO Atul Asthana told FE that the variety that fetched such a record price is very delicate and customised. The variety cannot be nurtured in high quantity since it isn’t commercially viable. But such a brew magnifies the visibility of the brand and connoisseurs from across the world would look at Goodricke more closely.

There are a whole lot of Indian connoisseurs, especially in eastern India, for such handcrafted delicate variety and this could be the reason the Kolkata and the Siliguri based bidders paid the highest price for the finest of varieties, Asthana said.

The e-auction for the specially plucked tea to commemorate the International Tea day, was held in all the eight centres across the country and offered 33,381 kgs in the platforms. The sold volume was 24,761 kgs, fetching an average price of Rs 327 a kg above the average reserve price of Rs 273 a kg, across categories including Orthodox, CTC, Green and White Tea, Rajanigandha Seal Naskar, the Tea Board controller of licensing said.

The average premium price was excluding the prices fetched from the mjunction controlled Jorhat Tea Auction Centre, whose modus operandi is different from other seven auction centres, including Guwahati, Siliguri, Kolkata, Cochin, Coonoor, Coimbatore and Tea Serve, she said.

Tea Board roped in mjunction to operate in a separate auction module with value added services for sale of tea under the tea board framed detail rules and regulations. The e-market place starting its Jorhat operations from last year offered the best of Assam’s CTC, Green and Orthodox tea from the gardens of Hookhmol Muktabari, Aideobari, Rangliting, Narayanpur, Diroibam, Lankashi, Durgapur, Kathonibari, Arin and Pabhojan. It received offerings of more than 1.3 million kg of tea from Assam, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh in the last one year, Vinay Verma, mjunction managing director and CEO said.

The Jorhat platform auctioned Pabhojan Orthodox tea at a record price of Rs 4,000 a kg, while Diroibam speciality tea was auctioned at Rs 1,000 a kg. The famous Hookhmol CTC was auctioned at Rs 510 a kg, mjunction said.