A drink to rival Pepsi, Cola

Arch-rivals Pepsi and Coca-Cola would be having another competitor, a tea based soft drink, Tea Research Association chairman Sudhir Prakash said.

The topic would be discussed in details at the 34th Tocklai conference to be held in Guwahati from November 28 to 30, 2005 at Jorhat, he added.

The Assam tea industry, which was among the largest producers in the world, had seen a decline in the recent years and was slowly losing ground.

He said with steep competition from other beverages, tea was already having a tough time. The industry was also troubled by quality issues. Tocklai experimental station of the TRA had to find out a way to stop the downfall.

The yield of North East tea, which has increased from 400 kg/ha in 1990 to 1800 kg/ha in 2000, was passing through a period of depression primarily due to unremunerative price realisation.

Ninety three-year-old Tocklai experimental station, the oldest tea research institute in the world, would be organising the conference to discuss the strategies of quality enhancement and on how the industry could compete

in the global market.

To be a leader in the global arena, the research station would focus on certain new strategies which include setting up fresh standards for tea, developing black tea attributes as per consumer's choice and developing tea based soft drinks, said the chairman.

Since plant improvement plays a very important part, the research station was working out ways of selecting quality planting material as per the need of the industry, cloning of genes, production of secondary metabolites and using more organic manure, he said.

Proper steps for plant protection non-conventional methods for disease control would be developed. New technologies were being transferred to the industry for microbial control of diseases as well.

Apart from these, study on integrated nutrient management and long term nutritional trials were being taken up.

Dr D N Baruah, an adviser to the TRA said, ''The tea industry of North East would continue its dependence on Tocklai and would position itself as a global tea brand. Tocklai also should not afford to neglect the North East tea industry.''