While I empathise with Luke Turner’s plea for tea, that most iconic “British” beverage, to be affordable to all (Why I’m campaigning for the £1 cuppa to be available all around Britain, 6 November), I also beg him to consider the women and men (but mostly women) who pluck the leaves that produce it.
The tea industry itself is a British phenomenon – its empire thrived on its vast international tea trade, powered by indentured labour trapped on plantations that were modelled on the cotton plantations of America. Sadly, many of those characteristics remain, and part of what is sustaining them is the low cost of tea. The price that producers are paid for processed tea leaves has remained static for decades (and has therefore plummeted in real terms), while production costs have risen – with a sharp spike driven by post-Covid inflation.
