Climate & Supply
How El Nino and La Nina Split the Tea Harvest
The same El Nino can put record volumes of tea on the ground in Kenya while raising drought risk in Sri Lanka, in the same months. What the ENSO cycle actually does to the harvest, region by region, and why a real statistical link to it still will not forecast a season.
Where a Warming Climate Is Already Cutting Tea Yields
A peer-reviewed synthesis of decades of research puts real numbers on climate change's effect on tea yield and quality, and on the growing area itself. Here is what the figures say, region by region.
Why a Drought Doesn't Always Raise the Tea Price
Two Kenyan droughts, a dry Assam monsoon, and a Sri Lankan cyclone give four real, recent tests of what a weather shock does to the tea price. The answer is not the simple shortage story it looks like from outside.
Who Bears the Cost of Tea's Climate Adaptation
Irrigation, shade trees, and drought-tolerant cultivars all carry a real bill, and it lands on different people in India, Kenya, and Sri Lanka. Here is what the adaptation money actually buys, and who is short of it.
A Longer Breeding Season Is Raising Tea's Pest Bill
India's Tea Research Association puts pest damage at 147 million kilograms of tea a year, about $318 million, and researchers now tie the rising toll to longer summers and shorter winters. Here is the mechanism, the regional split, and what growers are trying instead of more spray.
Weather Insurance for Tea Only Arrived in 2025
India's government wrote tea into a weather-based insurance scheme for the first time in 2025. Sri Lanka's smaller pilot dates to 2012 and stayed small. Kenya, the top exporter, still has no scheme built around the crop at all.