Darjeeling Tea exports have fallen 46 per cent in a decade, exposing a deeper contraction in the hill industry than the headline export figures alone suggest. Overseas shipments declined from 3.95 million kg of made tea in 2015 to 2.13 million kg in 2025, while production fell by around 36 per cent over the same period. The data points to an industry dealing simultaneously with lost overseas demand, declining output, labour shortages, inadequate investment and estates that are no longer financially viable.
The immediate break in the export trend came during the 2017 Gorkhaland agitation, when a prolonged closure brought the tea industry to a standstill for more than three months. According to Sandeep Mukherjee, principal adviser to the Darjeeling Tea Association, the disruption prevented Darjeeling Tea from reaching overseas consumers on time. Buyers subsequently shifted to tea from Nepal, he said, identifying the 2017 closure as the single most important reason for the export decline.
The export numbers support the scale of that disruption. Shipments fell from 3.79 million kg in 2016 to 2.48 million kg in 2017. They recovered to 3.71 million kg in 2018, but the rebound did not last. Exports stood at 3.30 million kg in 2019 and remained around or below that level in the years that followed. They declined to 2.47 million kg in 2023, recovered marginally to 2.92 million kg in 2024 and fell sharply again to 2.13 million kg in 2025, the lowest figure in the 11-year data set cited in the report.
That pattern matters because it separates a temporary supply interruption from a longer-term loss of capacity. If the 2017 closure had been the only major problem, the recovery recorded in 2018 might have been expected to continue. Instead, the industry failed to return to its earlier export levels. The 2025 figure was 1.66 million kg below the 2015 level, indicating that the export market has not regained the volume it handled before the disruption.
Production data reveals an equally serious problem at the source. Darjeeling produced 8.76 million kg of tea in 2015, compared with 5.60 million kg in 2025. The reduction of 3.16 million kg is equivalent to about 36 per cent of the 2015 output. Production has remained below seven million kg since 2022, declining from 6.93 million kg in 2022 to 6.01 million kg in 2023, 5.71 million kg in 2024 and 5.60 million kg in 2025.
The production decline limits the industry’s ability to rebuild exports, even when overseas demand exists. Darjeeling Tea is produced within a defined geographical and institutional framework: 87 plantations are entitled to produce and sell tea carrying the Darjeeling geographical indication. That designation links the product to its place of origin, but the data shows that the geographical identity alone has not protected production capacity or export volumes.
The consequences are concentrated across a relatively small employment base. The industry employs around 55,000 permanent workers and another 15,000 temporary workers, according to the report. At least nine Darjeeling tea gardens are currently closed, while several other estates are reportedly up for sale. Few buyers are showing interest, an industry source said. The condition of the gardens therefore affects not only a premium agricultural product but also employment, household income and the economic activity of settlements dependent on the plantations.
Labour availability is one of the factors cited for the production decline. Worker absenteeism has reached almost 45 per cent, while a lack of investment by management in the gardens has also been identified as a reason for the steady fall in output. These two issues are connected to the operational condition of the estates, but the supplied data does not establish a single cause for the absenteeism or quantify the investment shortfall. What it does establish is that production has continued to decline even after the 2017 shutdown ended.
The industry’s financial position is also under pressure from the gap between auction prices and production costs. The average auction price of Darjeeling Tea rose from ₹285.61 per kg in 2015 to ₹420.95 per kg in 2025. On the surface, that is an increase of more than ₹135 per kg. However, prices fluctuated considerably, reaching ₹434.88 per kg in 2018 before falling to ₹320.32 per kg in 2023. Producers maintain that the prices remain below the cost of making the tea.
An industry source put the cost of production at least at ₹550 per kilogram. If that estimate is compared with the 2025 average auction price of ₹420.95 per kg, the reported gap is about ₹129 per kg. This comparison does not provide a complete account of each estate’s finances, because production costs and realised prices can vary. It does, however, show why an increase in auction prices has not automatically translated into a recovery for producers.
The export dependence makes the problem more difficult. The industry has a global reputation built over more than a century, with tea cultivation in Darjeeling dating back to the 1850s. Its distinctive aroma and flavour helped create a premium identity, while overseas shipments connected the gardens to consumers beyond the domestic market. But dependence on exports also means that a disruption in supply can have lasting consequences if buyers establish relationships with competing sources.
The 2017 experience demonstrates how infrastructure and institutional continuity can influence a specialised agricultural economy. The closure was a political disruption, but its commercial impact extended beyond the period in which the gardens stopped operating. Tea is a time-sensitive product, and missed deliveries affected the ability of Darjeeling producers to serve established consumers. The subsequent shift to Nepal tea, as described by the Darjeeling Tea Association adviser, suggests that market access can be lost even when a product retains its reputation.
This also changes the policy question. The issue is not simply how to promote Darjeeling Tea in overseas markets. The reported numbers indicate that the industry must first maintain enough production, labour participation and estate-level investment to supply those markets consistently. Export promotion cannot compensate indefinitely for declining output or closed gardens. At the same time, higher auction prices will not by themselves resolve the problem if they remain below the reported cost of production.
The available evidence does not establish whether the recent export decline is driven mainly by reduced international demand, insufficient supply, competition from Nepal or the financial condition of individual estates. It does show that these questions cannot be separated from the condition of the plantations themselves. Production has fallen by more than three million kilograms since 2015, while exports have fallen by 1.82 million kilograms. The parallel movement suggests that supply-side weakness is central to the industry’s present difficulty, even though the precise contribution of each factor remains unquantified in the reported data.
For Darjeeling’s hill economy, the important signal is the persistence of the decline. Exports briefly recovered after 2017, but neither exports nor production returned to their earlier levels. By 2025, the industry had reached its lowest reported export figure in 11 years, and production had fallen to 5.60 million kg. The next critical indicators are whether closed gardens reopen, whether investment returns to the estates, whether absenteeism declines and whether auction prices rise sufficiently above production costs to support continued operations. Until those indicators improve, the export fall remains a symptom of a broader erosion in the productive base of Darjeeling Tea.
