Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan has unveiled yet another tea processing factory.

The country’s region of Astara opened “Astarachay” tea processing factory, built on a similar project in Korea.

The factory has an area of about five hectares. Its production capacity is 12 tons per day with an in intent to increase production up to 24 tons per day.

Thanks to the latest technology employed in the factory, the company will be able to produce eight packages of tea per minute.

Agricultural enterprise "Astarachay" was established in 2010. It produces a variety of agricultural products, but the company is mainly focused on tea. Astarachay owns a total of 640 hectares, 400 hectares of which is allocated to the tea plantations.

"Astarachay" also deals with rice growers. The sown area for rice accounted for 20 hectares as of 2014, and some 102 tons of rice were collected.

This year, the company is going to allocate 120 hectares for growing rice; it has purchased all of the necessary equipment for this purpose.

Tea growing in Azerbaijan was founded in the early 1930s in the Southern cities of Astara and Lankaran.

The main producer of tea in Azerbaijan is Azersun Holding, which collects tea leaves from the Lankaran and Astara locations, as well as its tea plantations in Sri Lanka.

Local tea is exported to almost all of the CIS countries, as well as to Europe and America.

Azerbaijani tea culture enjoys a time-honored history and profound richness, carrying both material and spiritual elements. Since ancient times, tea is an integral part of people’s daily life in Azerbaijan. People here drink tea in special tea glass known as "Armudu," literally “pear-shaped.”

According to the State Statistics Committee, a total of 474.2 tons of tea leaves were collected in the country in 2014, while in 2013, this figure was 570 tons.

Despite the slight decrease in the collection of tea last year, in 2015 this figure is higher. As of June some 251.8 tons of tea leaves were collected in the country, which is by 14.2 percent more than in January-May 2014.

However, Azerbaijan not only exports, but it imports tea as well. Azerbaijan’s domestic production cannot account for demand in Azerbaijan, forcing the country to import from other major tea producing countries.

Russia exported 134 tons of tea in 2013 to Azerbaijan, while Azerbaijan exported 2,900 tons of tea (mainly Ceylon Tea packs) back to Russia.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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