Golden Needle, Arunachal Pradesh Tea Variant Auctioned at Rs 40,000 Per Kg

An Arunachal Pradesh tea garden’s tea variety, named Golden Needle, was auctioned at Rs 40,000 per kg at the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre (GTAC) on Thursday. This new record set by the tea variant from Arunachal Pradesh has even broken the record created by an Assam Tea variety that was auctioned a month earlier.

Earlier, an Assam tea garden variant was auctioned at Rs 39,001 per kg in July and this was the highest price that the GTAC had claimed across the world.

The Arunachal Pradesh tea garden to produce the ‘Golden Needle’ tea is Donyi Polo tea estate that sold 1.1 kg of its tea at Rs 40,000 per kg to Assam Tea Traders. Notably, Assam Tea Traders is one of the oldest tea shops in Guwahati.

Dinesh Bihani, secretary of the Guwahati Tea Auction Buyers Association says, “These type of specialty teas are attracting more and more buyers and producers to come together and use GTAC platform. We hope that these specialty teas will make us achieve our past glory in the world map.”

Assam Tea Traders’ Lalit Kumar Jalan stated, "There is a rising demand for good tea and we are selling specialty tea regularly. These Golden Needles will be sold through an online platform, Absolutetea.in.”

The particular characteristic of the Golden Needles variety of tea is that it has small buds which are carefully plucked and the leaves. Moreover, these have a coating of golden colour and are soft and velvety. The liquor prepared from this special tea is bright golden in colour, sweet to taste and has a rich aroma.

This is to be mentioned that the same tea garden, the Donyi Polo tea estate had made a lot of effort to make this type of tea and before this, the Silver Needles white tea was being made by them that was sold for Rs 17,001 per kg. The manager of the tea estate also mentioned that for making such delicate types of tea, the natural forces must align with precise tea making skills.