DARJEELING /India/, October 4. /TASS/. The tea producers in India’s Darjeeling municipality would love Russia to become the main important of its product again, Sandeep Mukherjee, Principal Advisor of the Darjeeling Tea Association, said in an interview with TASS.

"We sincerely look forward to Russia’s becoming our main tea importer. We prefer Russia to our domestic market," Mukherjee said.

Darjeeling is a city and a municipality in the Indian state of West Bengal. The region is one of the most renowned tea producers in India.

Thanks to special climatic conditions and long-term traditions, the local tea is considered elite among the country's black teas and is called "champagne tea."

According to Mukherjee, before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, nearly 75-80% of Darjeeling tea was exported to the USSR.

"At that point of time Darjeeling used to produce around 14 mln kg of tea per year," he said. (Traditionally, tea producers measure production volume in kilograms, not in tonnes - TASS).

"After the USSR broke up the export of tea nearly stopped and the next three-four years the Darjeeling tea industry went through difficult times. During that period between 1991 and 1995 a lot of tea gardens closed, many people became unemployed and the production of tea dropped to 11 mln kg," Mukherjee said.

Switch to organic tea

From 1995, Darjeeling began to increase exports of tea, finding new customers in the US, Germany, France and Japan, Mukherjee said.

"But these new markets said they would import Darjeeling tea only if it was organic [produced without use of chemicals]," he explained adding that the tea exported to the USSR was mainly not organic.

"After 1996, seventy percent of tea gardens in Darjeeling became organic," he said.

According to Mukherjee, there are 82 gardens in Darjeeling, which employ 67,000 workers. He regretted that Russia is buying less and less Indian tea.

Mukherjee explained that currently Russia reexports Darjeeling tea from Europe.

"From Darjeeling it [the tea] goes to Germany, from Germany it is reexported to the Czech Republic and from there it goes to Moscow," he said.