Abstract:
Adding innovative tea products into existing product line is a form of diversification in
Tea industry. To investigate the different tea products exported from Sri Lanka, and to
study their future scope as diversified tea products, the study was conducted in Colombo,
Sri Lanka. Forty five tea exporting firms were selected using stratified Random Sampling
Method representing small (15), medium (15) and large (15) firms. A questionnaire based
field survey was carried out for the purpose. Descriptive statistical tools and the Wilcoxon
Ranked Sign Test were used to analyze data. Out of the 43 firms, 41(97%), 14(34%) and
37(86%) firms exported black tea, white tea and green tea respectively. Seven firms (16%)
were engaged in exporting Oolong tea while 20 firms (48%) engaged in herbal tea export.
Fourteen firms (34%) exported organic tea. Tea concentrate was exported by only 4 firms
(9%), while no firms were engaged in exporting in tea tablet. Fifty five percent of the
tea exporters suggested that the most important product we should pay attention was
black tea. With 53% (23) of strongly agreements the promotion of green tea was highly
recommended revealing an expanding market in future in Europe and United States.
Herbal tea attained relatively a higher mean value with 65% (28) strongly agreements.
Seventy four percent of exporters suggested promoting Ready to Drink or Ice tea is an
innovative product to capture the active life segment among the global tea consumers.
Iced tea gained low mean value 0.95. No firms were observed engaged in exporting tea
tablet and tea concentrate hence, both products acquired low mean values 0.32 and 0.27
in sequence. Among innovative tea products except Ceylon black tea, green tea, herbal tea
and organic tea have an abundant space for development and a potential demand in future
in the global tea market among other tea products.
