A tea conference has just finished in Bangladesh- many tea planters and environmentalist joined in this conference to talk about the effect of chemical fertilizers effect on tea. My friend(a tea planter) was one of the participant and gave me this information. The positive effect of this conference was, many Bangladeshi private tea estates will allow to increase earthworm's natural habitat and totally stop using pesticide though it will decrease their production.
We tea lovers are so happy to buy teas and increasing the demand of tea dramatically every year but are we aware of this issue that- for our dramatical demand, many tea growers are increasing their tea production by using chemical fertilizers and pesticides back to the tea gardens? Which has an big negative effect on- encouraging tea growers to use fertilizing process for our refreshing natural green tea plant.
Thousand and thousand years natural earthworms are giving us refresh taste and healthy component of tea. But recently- Chinese tea gardens are increasing using chemical fertilizers and pesticide more and more to coup up with increasing demand for the western tea market. Indian tea estates situation is worst. A join research of a French-China and India has proven- In India comoarable basis, 79.5% more than in others areas that used chemical fertilizer. After 80 years of using chemical pesticide, Indian tea gardens soil worsening environment. The research has also shown China has a wide area of tea plantation and also has a better numeric proportion of old tea tree and earthworms that has still a great chance to avoid the similar tragedy in India.
I hope our RFDT friend- DogMa is a chemist and will provide more information on this issue.
Ripon Vienna,VA