economy

The World’s Largest Tea Producers

Tea is the world’s most-consumed drink after water, with global production reaching 7.05 million metric tons in 2024. That was nearly double the amount produced 20 years earlier.

Visual Data Insights · 2026-09-01

Tea is the world’s most-consumed beverage after water, and global production has grown dramatically over the past two decades. In 2024, the world produced 7.05 million metric tons of tea—nearly twice the amount produced 20 years earlier.

Black tea remains the world’s dominant variety, while green tea accounts for roughly one-third of global production.

This visualization ranks the world’s largest tea-producing countries in 2024 by total production, measured in metric tons. Data comes from the International Tea Committee Ltd, via the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal.

China Produces More Tea

China, the birthplace of tea, is by far the world’s largest tea producer. In 2024, it produced 3.74 million metric tons, accounting for 53% of global output.

China produced nearly three times as much tea as India, the world’s second-largest producer. Its 2024 production was also greater than the combined output of India, Kenya, Türkiye, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Japan.

China’s dominance reflects both the enormous scale of its tea industry and its centuries-long history of tea cultivation.

India Is Second

India produced 1.29 million metric tons of tea in 2024, representing 18% of global production. Together, China and India accounted for 71% of all tea produced worldwide.

India is also a major tea-consuming nation. More than half of its tea is consumed domestically, meaning its enormous production serves both a large local market and international buyers.

Kenya ranked third, producing 599,000 metric tons, or 8% of global output. It is the only country outside Asia among the world’s eight largest tea producers.

While Kenya produces less than half as much tea as India, it plays an outsized role in global trade: Kenya is the world’s leading tea exporter. China and India, by contrast, consume a much larger share of their production domestically.

Asia Dominates the Tea Industry

The world’s tea production is heavily concentrated in Asia. Seven of the eight largest tea-producing countries are in Asia, including China, India, Türkiye, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Japan.

Türkiye is particularly notable for its domestic tea culture, with the world’s highest per-capita tea consumption at more than three kilograms per person annually.

Together, the top eight tea-producing countries accounted for 93% of global production in 2024. The rest of the world produced just 515,000 metric tons, or 7% of the global total.

The result is a remarkably concentrated global tea industry: a handful of countries—led overwhelmingly by China and India—produce the vast majority of the tea consumed around the world.