Kenya's tea auction sales rise 18 percent

Kenya's tea auction sales rose 18 percent to 94.5 million kg in the January-March quarter from 79.8 million kg in the same period last year, the Africa Tea Brokers Limited said on Wednesday. Kenya is a exporter of black tea and the crop is the second biggest source of hard currency in east Africa's largest economy after horticulture.
Tea production in Kenya is forecast to rise more than 15 percent in 2010 from 315 million kg of tea in 2009, according to the Tea Board of Kenya. More than three quarters of the 94.5 million kg of auction sales came from Kenya, the rest from regional nations, statistics from the brokers showed. The major buyer of tea at the Mombasa auction was Lipton Limited, associated with tea producer Unilever, it said. Lipton bought 20.6 million kg of tea compared with 14.8 million kg in the first quarter last year.