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Accounts on the best regions & gardens, including growing & processing secrets for specialist teas. Tea Tasting Forum: what to look for in green & oolong teas. Tea Briefs: market and trade news. Annual tea conferences in Asia, famous tea schools & lists of the most highly rated tea museums and tea-rooms throughout the world.

Emperor Qianlong's
Long Jing fetches highest
ever auction price

It is a longjing tea producer's dream to be honoured the best seasonal price for their tea. Now it seems equally true of rival Chinese businessmen trying to outbid each other in the stakes for the highest price ever recorded for tea on the famous 'top-ten list'. The pu'er world is used to record auction bids. It's not uncommon also among oolong speculators. Rarely does a green tea accrue such big numbers. Unless that is you're talking about longjing. In Shanghai it was reported that a local businessman bought at auction in Hangzhou, a mere 100 grams of longjing tea for a staggering 145,600 Yuan (US$17,470) on the 18th April. All the more bizarre since the purchase was made almost certainly two weeks after the main Qing Ming harvest, a key date in the longjing tea calendar. The starting price for the tea was set at a dizzy 80,000 Yuan after the tea was evaluated by Hangzhou experts as the best of the 2005 West Lake Long Jing production. The lot apparently derived from only twelve tea trees that were originally planted for Emperor Qianlong during the Qing Dynasty. The tea was processed at Long Jing Village by the region's 1999 longjing tea champions, Mr Sheng Weigen and his brother Sheng Yaomin. Longjing tea is regarded as the top green tea in China. The only genuine source coming from areas surrounding the town of Hangzhou. The total output by value of the tea from Hangzhou reached one billion Yuan, or US$120m, in 2004, which accounted for 8% of the country's total output by value, according to official statistics. Most of the top longjing is not consumed locally but is shipped to nearby Shanghai, Hong Kong and increasingly the USA and Europe.

GT catechin lowers
prostate risk

Green tea catechin reduces prostate cancer risk.
That's the finding from a year-long research study
at the University of Parma in Italy

The much neglected field of men's health and prostate cancer in particular, received a minor publicity boost in May when Dr Saverio Bettuzzi reported his preliminary work at an American Association for Cancer Research meeting held in California. The researcher believes compounds found in green tea might possibly prevent the development of prostate cancer in certain men. Encouraged by a growing interest in green tea catechins and disease prevention, researchers at the University of Parma in Italy carried out a small human trial studying the effects of green tea catechin on men with a pre-cancerous prostrate condition, so-called high-grade intraepithelial neoplasia. Asian regions where the diet is very rich in vegetable polyphenols and where green tea is consumed in quantity show lower rates of prostate cancer. The group wanted to test the idea that green tea catechin could be responsible for the statistics.

The study
Investigators looked at a group of men with the pre-cancerous prostrate condition. Part of the group were given a placebo, while the other a preparation containing 600mg of green tea catechin each day. The researchers say this is equivalent to between 12 and 15 cups of green tea a day, which is about two times the average intake in Asian countries. After one year the trial reported that only 1 in 32, or just over 3%, taking the catechin preparation developed prostate cancer. By contrast, 9 out of 30 men (about 30%) treated with the placebo went on to develop prostate cancer. The researchers acknowledge that the findings possibly represent the first study showing that catechins of green tea origin have potent in vivo chemo-prevention activity for human prostate cancer. It was pointed out that almost 30,000 men in the USA die from prostate cancer every year and presently there are few options once the disease is diagnosed. It is a much neglected area of healthcare and one where prevention is the best way to overcome it.

KAGOSHIMA-CHA NEVER QUITE MAKES THE GRADE
[Extract: An April Satsuma]

Kagoshima-cha, always the first at teashops every year and always a disappointment to fine sencha drinkers. But like all sencha enthusiasts, the arrival of the first tea of a new season is always a welcome sight. Kagoshima, still referred to by its old name Satsuma, lies to the south-western corner of the island of Kyushu and is the second largest producer of sencha in Japan. The climate of the region is highly favourable for tea production allowing five big harvests stretching from the second week of March until well into October. Because of this Kagoshima's tea growers can place sencha on the market weeks ahead of most other producers. Kagoshima-cha therefore arrives at the very start of the new tea or 'shin-cha' season. Every year at this time producers from the region take their teas all over Japan to promote the first and certainly unusual style of sencha. The 2005 Kagoshima-cha was on sale by the middle of April. Late this year, but earlier than any other sencha. The flavour of Kagoshima's sencha is often described appropriately as "tropical". A fitting term for a sencha with a strong green taste and little astringency. Alas the top shin-cha from this region never lives up to expectation. Pleasant enough teas in a sense, though not what one would expect from a shin-cha label, the Satsuma promotion blurb nor the fantastic price. Kagoshima sencha is made to a needle form, bright-green tamaryokucha-like glossy, with a sweet green and mild fruity aroma. Infusions of all grades of their sencha lack the refinements of the teas that follow a week or so later. Colour is a bold and illuminating yellow-green. Aroma slightly fresh-green, not distinctive and rather narrow. Lower grades are dominated by their moderately bitter flavours with not much sweetness - a noticeably deficiency with these early Kagoshima sencha.

On The Market

Unilever, the makers of mainstream teas, Lipton and Brooke Bond PG Tips, has been held accountable for the dire conditions on its Indian tea plantations. ActionAid, a UK fair-trade charity protested outside the firms annual general meeting to draw attention to the poverty among tea plantation workers in India. The charity says Unilever is profiting from worsening conditions on its plantations with falling auction prices driving down wages. The charity urges UK consumers to think carefully before buying tea, but does not advocate a ban on Unilever tea products. Most of India's tea pickers receive little more than one dollar a day while working for subsidiaries of multinational food companies. Unilever's India operations are run through its subsidiary, Hindustan Lever, which manages plantations in the state of Assam; the largest of India's tea growing areas with over 856m kg of tea harvested in 2004. Twinings has parted company with ad agency, Leagas Delaney, only weeks after appointing Chris Rigby to head its UK marketing. Leagas Delaney had just completed a multi-million pound marketing campaign supporting Twinings move into the UK's mainstream tea sector with the launch of "Everyday Tea", helped along by the comic-actor Stephen Fry. Associated British Food, owner of Twinings, appointed Rigby, a formerly Diageo marketer, as marketing director for ABF's tea division, which has an annual UK advertising spend of around GBP4m (US$7.2). The marketing budget for the Twinings UK operation will increase in 2005. Whittard of Chelsea, the London-based tea and coffee merchant saw its shares tumble over 25% before recovering on the London Stock Exchange. The dive in Whittard's share price came after what was referred to as a 'devastating profit warning'. High street sales over the normally busy Easter period were down 4% against a year ago: a spectacular turn of fortune on September 2004, when the company was talking of comparable sales surging at a rate of 6%. Profit forecasts for 2005 have now been downgraded. Whittard showed a profit of GBP3.3 million (US$5.9m) in 2004 after several years of lackluster performance. Whittard's shares recovered slightly to close at 105p, 7/4/05.

Ten Ren pays the auctioneer's price
A Taiwanese oolong fetches US$14,839 a catty at auction

An oolong tea auction held in Taiwan by the Ministry of Agriculture prior to the Chinese Lunar New Year set a new record for the highest price ever paid for a Taiwanese tea. The tea lot, which established the historic price, was a Ching-hsin Oolong produced at the Meishan gardens in Jia-yi county. The bidder was Mr Lee Sheng-chih, chairman of the Taiwanese tea company, Ten Ren.The auction price set for the tea was about US$1000 for a catty or 500g. However Lee's bid amounted to NT$460,000 (US$14,839) for the tea, setting a new high for a Taiwanese oolong. According to local reports the oolong was divided, half being presented to President Chen Shui-bian, while the remainder was exhibited at the Tien Fu Tea House (Ten Ren's mainland business) on Wangfujing Street, Beijing. After a tour of exhibitions all over China the high-valued oolong will then be moved to the Tien Fu (Ten Ren) Tea Museum in Fujian Province for permanent preservation there. Tastings of the oolong were apparently made prior to the auction by Lee Yueh-feng the 25-year-old heir-apparent to Ten Ren empire. Lee junior commenting that each sip of the Ching-hsin Oolong was worth around NT$2,000 or US$65.00. Jia-yi's Ching-hsin Oolong is not however the highest price ever paid for an oolong tea. That honour goes a tea from the Anxi region of Fujian. There a single gram of a highly rated Anxi Tieguanyin was reported auctioned in 2004 for a record a price of 180,000 Yuan, amounting to a staggering US$258,000 a kg.

Taste the difference
with a matured Gyokuro

Amino acid and polyphenol ingredients important to the colour, aroma and taste of artisan gyokuro have been studied over the years. The main differences between 'fresh' and matured, low and high grade teas are now becoming apparent (see table, The Tea Business, March 2005). Understanding how such flavours arise from shade cultivation and processing still remain one of the key challenges in gyokuro production. The high levels of amino acid distinguishes gyokuro from all other classes of tea, and is an important factor in grading and pricing. Three kinds of gyokuro are recognized: (i) high-grade gyokuro derived from the first harvest, undergoes moderate to lengthy maturation (3 months minimum), (ii) middle-grade gyokuro derived from the first harvest, undergoes short-time storage (one month), (iii) low grade gyokuro often called netto, derived from a second round of cropping, usually larger leaf fractions, teas are settled but no maturation involved.

SHANTOU OOLONG
DRINKERS TURN TO PU'ER
[Extract, The Tea Business April 2005]

Guangdong Tea Society has declared that pu'er tea in the province is now more popular than oolong. Vice-chairman of the tea society, Chen Guo-ben, said that over recent years sales of pu'er tea have overtaken those of traditional oolongs, for which the province is equally famous. Guangdong is known for its unique light and fruit styles of Shantou Oolong: teas which rarely make it to the international scene. Traditionally pu'er is drunk by older tea drinkers in Guangdong and is renowned for being gentle on the stomach, as well as being believed to help people lose weight. But the reasons for pu'er's sudden popularity in Canton is the belief that older pu'ers increase in value. Guangdong Tea Society is now concerned that tea enthusiasts in the provincial capital of Guangzhou (Canton) are buying up large stocks of brick tea and hoarding them. There are now tens of thousands of people in Guangdong Province collecting pu'er tea as an investment. One giving better returns than the stock market. A highly speculative investment because it also relies on the ability of the pu'er drinker-collector to know which teas will improve over time. Although most pu'er do actually improve in quality with age, if properly made and stored. However, not all do. Recent tea auctions across China have fuelled speculative buying in pu'er cakes. One auction held in Yunnan last March, had a century-old pu'er tea cake (20g) lot which was bought by a Hong Kong tea collector for 7,000 yuan (US$840). Some traders in Guangdong are hoarding as much as tens of tons of pu'er each. Only a fraction of the pu'er now arriving in the province is being traded. Yunnan's Chambers for the tea industry said the production of pu'er began to grow very quickly in 2003 and accounted for about 30% of the 78m kg of tea produced in Yunnan last year. Tea industry officials also acknowledge that it is difficult to know the true production and sales of pu'er as figures often quoted are from scattered operations with many private transactions. Pu'er is expected to account for 70% of Yunnan's tea production in 2005, which has come as big surprise to an industry in rapid export expansion. Guangdong's mania for pu'er is not only affecting private auction prices in Canton, since the raw materials for making most pu'er cakes these days are the same as those for other Yunnan teas. This year's spring crops saw further price increases ...

On The Market

Twinings, not known for its aggressive branding is changing its marketing focus in the wake of stiffer competition in all areas of tea retailing. The parent company Associated British Foods has given its US marketing account to New York-based marketing agency BrandBuzz, which is part of Young & Rubicam Brands. Past marketing campaigns by Twinings in the USA have been subdued affairs, so it is expected that the new promoters will set a new pace. Other clients of BrandBuzz include Cadbury Schweppes and Americas Beverages. PepsiCo and Unilever are set to re-launch their Lipton Ice Tea brand in the US following a product makeover. The lemon-flavoured tea drink has been repackaged and reportedly features a new mystery formula. Two formulations of the brand - Lipton Original Iced Tea and Lipton Iced Tea - will be launched across the USA later in March 2005. Lipton Original, which the makers say is made with freshly brewed tea, has been reformulated to contain less sugar. It will be sold in 16oz glass bottles and has a new sporty look. A new diet version also joins the nine-variety lineup, which also includes sweetened, unsweetened, lemon, extra sweet, raspberry, green tea with honey, and diet lemon and peach. New Lipton Iced Tea will be available in four flavors: lemon, diet with lemon, green tea with citrus and diet green tea with citrus. The teas will be sold in 20oz and 1.5L and 2L plastic bottles, as well as 16.9oz 6-packs and 12-packs. An antioxidant logo will be included on packages of Lipton Original and New Lipton Iced Tea as well as on Lipton tea-bags. The naturally occurring 'better for you' benefits of tea are now being validated through science, claims the Pepsi-Lipton Tea Partnership. The launch of Lipton Original and Lipton Iced Tea will be supported by national television advertising, as well as a print and online advertising, in-store sampling and promotions.Like many companies with international tea brands, India's Tata Tea (Tetley) is slowly retreating from the business of running Indian tea estates. Eight of Tata's freehold tea estates are up for sale in southern India. The estates, located in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. There are 17 others which are on leasehold land and these will be transferred to employees of the company. Tata Tea says it has decided to leave the plantation business because it wants to focus on its core business of instant and branded tea products. As Tata Tea has grown, its plantation business contribution, which was close to 80% of the company's income 20 years ago, has now fallen to less than 15%.

Doctor makes case for fluorosis tea link
A tea drinker drinking eight cups of this instant tea
a day could consume up to 8mg of fluoride

The fluoride in tea debate is about to broaden with reports on impending health cases and a crop of scientific studies on the issue. Old studies too are surfacing with fluoride tea data from previous research being examined more closely. With this, tea suppliers are having to take the issue more seriously. The recent case reported to the American Journal of Medicine by Dr. Michael P. Whyte, a bone specialist at Shriners Hospital for Children is a extreme one but it does highlight a health concern not only about tea but the inclusion of fluoride in food and water. The case involved a 52-year-old woman from St. Louis with a mysterious bone disease. Her condition included a stiff spine and aching back. Whyte, concluded she had a disease that afflicts people in remote regions of Tibet, Mongolia and China, namely a rare skeletal fluorosis. Skeletal fluorosis, or a weakening of bone occurs when people are exposed to very high levels of fluoride over long periods. Fluoride becomes embedded within bone structures eventually making it weak and brittle. In places where the disease is common, water is often the cause as its fluoride ensures high daily consumption. In the United States, where drinking water is filtered, low levels of fluoride is added to prevent tooth decay. But that's not enough fluoride to produce disease. Dr Whyte reviewed all possible sources of the St Louis woman's fluoride; everything from toothpaste and mouthwash to her teflon-coated pans. The study eliminated other potential sources of fluoride exposure such as wine, bottled mineral waters, her domestic water supply, which contained 2.8mg/L of fluoride, even environmental pesticides. All such sources were not high enough to account for the excessive amount of fluoride found in the woman's urine. There was obviously another source and one related to the woman's lifestyle. That other source was tea. She apparently drank up to eight litres of strong instant tea every day and had done so for most of her adult life. Studies of people in Tibet and other areas where people drink large amounts of powdered "brick tea" have shown that the beverage can be a significant source of fluoride, eventually leading to skeletal fluorosis.

Instant tea's fluoride
Dr Whyte tested the St Louis woman's tea and found that her beverage of choice added between 26mg and 52mg of fluoride to her diet each day. That made her total daily fluoride intake from all sources range from 37mg to 74 mg. This is extremely high. The EPA allows up to 4mg/L of fluoride in drinking water, based on the calculation that it takes at least 20mg of fluoride per day, every day, for 20 years to produce crippling skeletal fluorosis. By contrast, FDA permits only 2.4mg/L in bottled water. WHO sets an optimal level for fluoride in drinking water at 1.2mg/L, while the U.S. Public Health Service says the concentration of fluoride in drinking water should not exceed 1.2mg/L. Whyte analysed the fluoride levels in several supermarket bought instant teas and found they contained between 1mg/L and 6.5mg/L of fluoride. A tea drinker drinking eight cups of this instant tea a day could consume up to 8mg of fluoride.

Young people today ...
an impatient generation

The British Tea Council is presently organizing a campaign encouraging people to drink more of their favourite tea. Four cups of tea each day in fact, for the good of everyone's health. The Tea Council is particularly concerned about decreasing consumption among young British women; the main buyers and drinkers of most mainstream tea over the years. The Tea Council conducted its own research on tea drinking trends in Britain which alerted them to the current problem. Although the data showed that young women are increasingly drinking tea rather than coffee, they are also preferring water over tea. The Tea Council's research indicates that tea consumption for women aged 20-34, as a share of total drinks, dropped from 38% in 1994 to 29% by 2003. Over the same period, mineral water and fruit drinks nearly doubled their share of the market. It would seem that young British women prefer to drink bottled water, soft drinks in cans as well as alcoholic drinks such as wine. Tea marketers responding to the data think they might have identified the root cause of the UK's shrinking tea sales. Impatience! They insist that the real problem with tea lies with the time it takes to brew it. Young people today feel the process of making and drinking a cup of tea in the home is too lengthy and so favour read-to-drink products instead. With so little time to spare, even the teabag isn't quick enough for them. The survey did not investigate attitudes of young people to any quality issues concerning British mainstream tea. The National Diet and Nutrition Survey has previously published figures showing that in Britain people over 50 now drink twice as much tea as people aged between 19 and 24. Unless these current trends change, tea making, in Britain at least is set to become an old-folks' pastime.

On The Market

Trendy coffee alternatives for young working women (tea actually) are being considered by Tetley as it seeks to develop a modern brand image for its tea business. UK towns and cities are now teeming with coffee bars after an explosion of the marketing theme over the past ten years. The number of branded coffee bars almost quadrupled in size in the last 5 years with turnover for 2004 expected to surpass US$1.8bn. Surprisingly, few of the major coffee chains have a branded tea on the menu. Starbucks, the largest coffee shop chain in the UK, sells chai teas under their own Tazo brand. Tetley think a chai-style tea could be sold more widely through established coffee shops. Chaya is Tetley's answer and it wants to sell the chai throughout one of the well-known coffee bars. Chaya teas will be sold as a liquid concentrate, rather than teabags. It would be mixed instantly with frothy milk for a sweet, creamy chai-like tea. Tetley is the second biggest teabag brand worldwide and a market leader in the UK. Known primarily for its teabags which are consumed in the home, Tetley's new range of teas denote a shift towards alternative market areas through an attempt to penetrate the UK's lucrative high street coffee bars. The move could be another marketing embarrassment for Tetley, if not costly error. Not only are they trying to introduce another new brand, costly enough, they want to distribute through the retail coffee bar (tearoom) sector. A sector notorious for its greedy high margins and very low supply costs. The concentrate may have to be teabag cheap to sell in this market. Then there's the question of Chai itself. Spicy milk-rich teas which have yet to establish in the health-conscious USA after 5 years of heavy promotion. Not even Starbucks can convince the American public to buy this tea. Teas the Brits have little understanding of. The UK tea and coffee chain, Whittard of Chelsea, is having a much harder time lately as British shoppers deserted the high street towards the end of last year. The company's sales targets were off the mark with current sales struggling to recover from one of the weakest Christmas trading periods for many years. High-street sales rose a mere 1% during the normally busy eight weeks to January 23, and were flat throughout much of December. Whittard, the London-listed company, with more than 100 retail shops in the UK, announced a pre-tax profit of only GBP334,000 (US$0.62m) for the second half-year's trading to November 28, 2004. This compares with GBP514,000 (H1, 2004). Whittard's shares, fell by 1.5p to GBP1.58 (US$0.84) 28/1/2005, having fallen from GBP2.20 since June 2004.

WORLD TEA HITS
RECORD HIGH
Tea production worldwide reached such levels in 2003 owing to China's push to boost its international share of the black tea market: now worth US$4.8bn

World tea production in 2003 reached a record 3.15bn kg, an increase on 2002 figures by 75m kg according to the United Nations' Rome-based agency, Food and Agriculture Organization (report 6th December). The FAO accounts for this by assuming favourable weather conditions. India again accounted for a major slice of production at 27.4%. Next China with 24.6%, and then Sri Lanka with 9.7% and Kenya, 9.4%. Despite the record production data, auction prices remained stable in 2003. The FAO's composite price averaged US$1.48 a kg between January to June 2003 and increased to an average of US$1.55 a kg in the second half of the year: a normal seasonal variation. Tea production worldwide reached such levels in 2003 owing to China's push to boost its international share of the black tea market: now worth US$4.8bn (auction). World tea production has grown rapidly over the past 25 years. In 1980, figures stood at 1.85bn kg. By 1999 2.89bn kg of tea was officially recorded. Higher production will inevitably follow in anticipation of new markets opening up in the USA, Eastern Europe and Asia. The minnows of the black tea world are increasing acreage year on year, China's immense capacity remains largely unchallenged, while producers in Assam, Ceylon and Kenya, so dependent on cheap mass labour, are investing in automated harvesting machinery to increase productivity.

Vietnam, welcomed
to the green tea club
The three-day Green Tea Festival, held in Shizuoka, Japan drew wide participation from over 90 companies
from Vietnam, China and India

Vietnam has become the newest member of the World Green Tea Association. Vietnamese green tea producers (Vitas) officially joined the fledgling tea association on 1st November at the three-day Green Tea Festival, held in Shizuoka, Japan. The festival drew wide participation from over 90 companies from Vietnam, China and India involved in production and distribution of green tea products. The World Green Tea Association was set up amide concerns that green tea distribution could fall victim to the multinational food businesses. The new association aims to foster active co-operation among established as well as emerging countries involved in green tea. Its remit will tackle issues specific to traditional & modern production and distribution of green tea. A transactions forum is also envisaged as well as a centre providing information important to green tea commerce. Although still barely visible on world markets, Vietnam's green tea accounts for a fifth of its tea exports (8m kg); a tiny amount compared with other association members. Vitas's ambition is to drive exports of green tea to consumers in Japan as well as the growing US market. To this end Vietnamese producers have modeled green tea facilities on the Japanese system. Installing advanced factory technology and quality assurance measures in order to meet future markets requirements. The country's tea industry wants to increase the proportion of green tea it exports to 60% of production by 2010. Vietnam is among the world's top ten countries in tea cultivation acreage and output. The value of Vietnam's tea exports to Japan rose from 50m Yen in 2003 to more than 70m Yen in the first nine months of this year.

Tea in Vietnam
Contrary to what one might expect, bearing in mind Vietnam's position next door to China, commercial tea production came with the colonial French in the first decade of twentieth century. The French established plantations and a rudimentary tea industry with nurseries north of Hanoi established by 1918. In line with its politics, by 1945 tea production had disseminated into northern and southern regions. Black tea production was concentrated to the north and managed under the Soviet Union. Production was badly managed and tea quality poor. Not until the end of the 1970s did Vietnam's tea industry re-organize with the purpose of improving yield & tea quality. In 1980 a trade & industry organization, VinaTea, emerged which provided a platform for greater productivity and better marketing. Production however was of low-grade black tea exported primarily to Iraq. Over the twenty years since 1980 production has almost trebled to nearly 60m kg (2000), while exports increased more than four times to 42m kg. Government policy in the 1990s has been to open its tea industry to joint ventures, several of which have been established with India and Japan. Emphasis post 2000 has been on the development of high-grown tea at gardens located towards the Chinese boarder regions.

On The Market

Japanese food conglomerate Kagome announced its latest research on barley tea, claiming that it improves blood circulation. The company's scientists presented their findings at the 14th meeting of the Society of Soft Drinks Technologies, held in Japan on 27th October. Kagome's researchers had previously discovered some unique blood properties of the ingredients contained in barley tea, which is a common health drink in Japan. According to Kagome, regular intake of barley tea improves blood fluidity owing to alkylpyrazines, key flavour substances found in the grain tea. Kagome is obviously delighted by the research since it markets a barley tea beverage under the trade-name of Rokujyo Mugicha. Sales of barley tea in Japan have been falling over the past ten years inline with other traditional beverages. Twinings announced in December it would enter the UK's mainstream tea sector (tea bag, black tea) by launching a new brand called Twinings Everyday Tea to compete with existing products. Twinings, considered a speciality tea brand is owned by the British food producer, Associated British Foods. Surprisingly it is Twinings first attempt to enter the British tea market since it operates almost exclusively in the non-mainstream tea segments, of which it claims a 68% share. However, the company has only a 6% share of the black tea market, which is worth GBP491m (US$956m) in the UK. The company's new tea will compete with some formidable brands such as PG Tips, Tetley, Typhoo and Yorkshire Tea, owned by Unilever, Tetley (Tata), Premier Foods & Taylor's. Companies that spend huge sums maintaining market share of this mature sector. The ABF brand says the launch will contribute significantly to its goal of doubling its UK business by 2008. The Scottish plantation & distribution firm James Finlay is in negotiations with the Vietnam Tea Association (Vitas) to develop the tea production infrastructure in the country. Finlay's involvement will span basic R&D and development of Vietnam's emerging tea industry. The plantation firm will also provide consultancy services on management & production issues to Vitas. Finlay is expected to invest in new factory facilities to improve quality & capacity of Vietnamese black tea, from which they will buy up to 10m kg yearly. For a brief period until the end of 2000, the Glasgow-based James Finlay was a public company trading on the London Exchange. Difficult years for its Kenyan plantations in the 1990s forced the owners John Swire Ltd to de-list and transfer control to Scotts' of Greenock, part of the Swire Pacific Group. James Finlay was established in Glasgow in 1750. It's main activities include plantations, tea manufacturing and trading.