Sri Lanka
Bulk sale to exporters is the most popular delivery system, where they distribute to various countries around the world. Tea is transported using many different methods such as ship, truck, railroad, and aircraft.
Impact:
Energy use is an important factor in tea production which transporting the leaves they use fuel and the amount of labor used in extracting the materials.
China
The tea exports are usually purchased by foreign brand owners. There are different ways of purchasing: direct purchase and joint stock ventures. China often pairs up with other tea companies to help expand their market and export tea to a wide variety of places.
- In direct purchase, foreign brand owners provide samples to the domestic tea companies in order to find a supplier through them. For example, Lipton has had a long connection with Qimen from Anhui, Chongqing, and other places to acquire black tea raw materials (Chen 49).
- Joint-stock ventures are when foreign brand owners invest with domestic companies. For example: Zhejiang Tea Group built a joint venture called Zhejiang Sanming Tea Co., Ltd. with a Japanese tea company, and in May 2007, started another tea joint venture with Indian Tata Group (49), just to name a few.
India
There are over 1,686 tea estates in India and the largest producers of tea in India are Tata Tea Limited, Tata Global Beverages (Tetley), Mohani Tea Leaves, Limtex, Godrej Tea, Gujarat Tea Processors & Packers Ltd, Unilever (Lipton) and McLeod Russell. (blue stars on map) Many of the cultivated tea remains in India and is sold under their brand names and shipped by trucks or via railroad transportation. The balance that has been sold through the E-Auction is exported via wholesalers or by one of the multinational Tea companies.
Environmental impact – truck and train pollution into the air and the demand for fuel for trucks and trains