Mr. Merrill J. Fernando, widely recognized as one of the country’s most successful tea marketers, has commented on Sri Lanka’s change of heart on CTC (cut, tear, curl) tea with current thinking suggesting that "the journey into CTC may not have been really necessary."

"Some years back there was aggressive lobbying to increase production, so much so, it was claimed `Go CTC or perish,"’ Fernando noted in a thought-provoking review in the annual report of Ceylon Tea Services Ltd., the only quoted tea exporter within his wide-ranging group.

"Unfortunately, there was no real direction or guidance in the selection of plantations suitable for CTC manufacture to meet demand in the market."

He said that CTC manufacture was the first blow to Sri Lanka’s tea industry in the multi national strategy towards commoditizing tea.

"The niceties, exquisite style and delights of traditional – orthodox tea began to disappear. CTC manufacture strips Ceylon tea of some of its greatest strengths such as diversity and distinctiveness."

"However, Sri Lanka fortunately remains the main producer of traditional orthodox tea despite pressure from various interests towards increasing CTC products," he comforted.

Fernando said that there was growing demand for speciality teas in most markets now. As a result there was a significant drop in quality of international brands in the last 20 years or so. Increased demand for these brands made it necessary for them to turn to cheaper sources for their blends.

"Some brands which contained a significant component of Ceylon tea in their blends for years may show no trace of it now. Consumers become captive to brand names and while they realise that their cup of tea is no longer what it was, they have no better quality to turn to."

In this situation, consumers were turning to new speciality teas which in most cases may only be a return to the quality they were used to in their everyday cup of tea about two decades ago.

Fernando said that the resurgence in quality tea has brought several small players offering excellent quality into the market. Having no strong brand name as yet to trade on, they rely on fine quality to draw customers.

He lamented that five decades of trade free of colonial demands and obligations have failed to evolve a vision for the country’s tea industry.

"That is pathetic, considering the importance of the industry to our economy as a key net foreign exchange provider."

He also warned that the free importation of tea that a segment of the trade was lobbying for could spell disaster to producers and said they should re-consider their position in the overall interest of the industry.

"They are perhaps unaware of or unconcerned with the potential long term damage to our producers that free imports will create. Their aim is to become competitive against other tea producing countries. Their objective can be achieved only by under quoting FOB prices of Ceylon tea. In effect, that competition will be against Ceylon tea as well," he warned.

"Competition among exporters will drive down FOB prices of their blends progressively to levels below the cost of production of our producers. That could well be the last straw for an industry that is already ailing under high production costs."