Tea Tasting

This is a refined and specialised skill and is an intrinsic part of auctioning. The subtle and varied nuances of every invoice of tea is first tasted, judged and valued by tea tasters before offering at auctions. His description of the liquor is based on taste, sight, touch and smell. A taster may deal with several hundred tea samples in a day. In his evaluation, he brings his knowledge and experience of a particular estate to make his conclusions.

Tea Broking

Around one third of all tea auctioned in India is handled by J. Thomas. The company conducts auctions at Kolkata, Guwahati, Siliguri, Cochin, Coonoor, and Coimbatore and has correspondents in all auction centres worldwide: Colombo, Chittagong, Mombasa, Jakarta, Limbe.

Advantages to Producers

• Only forum which enables large volumes of tea to be sold in a short time through competition, a transparent price barometer
• Exposure to all potential domestic and international markets
• Facilitates quality control and benchmarking
• Nominal selling cost

Advantages to Buyers

• Availability of widest variety under one roof
• Guaranteed quality
• Assured Delivery
• Facilitates forward planning
• Savings in transportation, storage and operating costs

Advantages to Government

• Accurate statistical data
• Collection of sales tax by auctioneers at no cost to Government

Coffee Harvesting

Coffee harvest in India begins from November. Arabica Coffee is harvested first followed by Robusta Coffees and the entire harvesting is completed by end March.

Ripe Cherries are harvested by hand, stripped from the tree with both ripe and over ripe beans. These processes are called selective picking and stripping. To maximize the amount of ripe coffees harvested, it is necessary to selectively pick the ripe coffee beans from the tree by hand and live behind the unripe, green beans to be harvested at a later time.

Coffee Auctions

The Indian Coffee Trade Association (ICTA) was established at Bangalore during Feb 1993 to conduct coffee auctions. J. THOMAS & CO PVT LTD., a member of ICTA has been auctioning coffee from the very first sale held on April 1993, currently auctions are held every Thursdays at the premises of Indian Coffee Board Auction Hall at Bangalore, only cured coffee (Green Beans) of all varieties are offered for sale in our catalogue brought out each week.

Coffees sold in the auction per 50 Kgs price. Prices are based on the New York and London coffee future settlement rates ARABICA Coffee price are based on the New York terminal closing price and ROBUSTA Coffee price are based on the London terminal closing price respectively.

Coffees are offered from all the traditional Southern States producing coffees from Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Kerala, also Non-Traditional areas coffees from Andhra Pradesh and from the North East Region are offered through our catalogue.

Certified Specialty coffee and Organic Coffee are also been offered through our catalogue.

Coffee Producers process and store their coffees in the curing works. Samples are drawn by the Auctioneers and displayed at the auction. Auctioneers charge the seller a fee of 1% of the sale value as selling Brokerage.

All sections of trade Exporters, Roasters and Merchant Traders participate in the weekly auctions and bid for the coffees on offer, as per the quality of coffee samples displayed each lot is knocked down to the highest bidder if the price meets the Auctioneers approval.