Argentina
A high-volume, low-cost black-tea origin in the subtropical north-east, and one of the most thoroughly mechanised tea industries in the world: the crop is cut by modified tractors rather than plucked, which takes stem and mature leaf along with the shoot. The tea that results is dark, plain and cheap, and it is bought largely for iced-tea manufacture and for blending where colour matters more than aroma. Argentina is also the heartland of yerba mate, a different plant entirely.
Production, trade and price
| Measure | Year | Value | Basis | Published by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Export value | 2023 | 72,375,000 USD | FAOSTAT TCL element 'Export value' for item 667 / CPC 01620 'Tea leaves'. FAO publishes this in thousands of US dollars; TeaHQ scales it to whole US dollars, an exact conversion. It is the customs value of made tea shipped, free on board, and includes re-exports. FAOSTAT flags this cell A, an official figure reported by the country. Published as 72,375 thousand USD. | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Statistics Division |
| Exports | 2023 | 62,250 t | FAOSTAT TCL element 'Export quantity' for item 667 / CPC 01620 'Tea leaves', in tonnes. Tea crosses a border only as MADE TEA, so this counts finished dried tea and is not on the same basis as the FAOSTAT production series for the same country and year, which counts green leaf. FAO compiles this domain substantially from national customs returns via UN Comtrade, and it includes re-exports: tea that merely passed through the reporting country is counted as its export. FAOSTAT flags this cell A, an official figure reported by the country. | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Statistics Division |
| Harvested area | 2023 | 30,100 ha | FAOSTAT QCL element 'Area harvested' for item 667 / CPC 01620 'Tea leaves', in hectares. FAO's methodology note warns that for permanent crops such as tea 'data may refer to total planted area' rather than area actually harvested, so this is the area under tea and not necessarily the area picked in the year. The associated crop is measured as green leaf. FAOSTAT flags this cell A, an official figure reported by the country. | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Statistics Division |
| Production | 2023 | 344,203 t | FAOSTAT QCL element 'Production' for item 667 / CPC 01620 'Tea leaves', in tonnes. FAO's QCL methodology note states the domain 'contains production data for primary products', so this counts GREEN LEAF as plucked, not made tea. It is roughly four to five times the made-tea figure the same country's tea board publishes. FAOSTAT flags this cell A, an official figure reported by the country. | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Statistics Division |
| Yield | 2023 | 11,435 kg/ha | FAOSTAT QCL element 'Yield' for item 667 / CPC 01620 'Tea leaves', in kilograms per hectare, computed by FAO from the production and area figures rather than reported directly. Because production is GREEN LEAF and the area may be planted rather than harvested, this is green-leaf yield per hectare planted and is not comparable with a made-tea yield. FAO states that yields of permanent crops 'are not as reliable as those for temporary crops'. FAOSTAT flags this cell A, an official figure reported by the country. | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Statistics Division |
Figures are reproduced as their publisher stated them and are not converted, averaged or ranked. Where two publishers disagree, both rows appear — this comes from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Statistics Division. The largest single trap in tea statistics is that FAO’s series counts green leaf as plucked while national tea boards count finished made tea, and the two differ by roughly a factor of four and a half. The basis column says which each row is, and a figure without it is not comparable to one with it.
How production is organised
Fully mechanised, on flat ground, at a scale and a labour intensity closer to a cereal crop than to anything else in tea. Harvesters cut the bushes coarsely and the leaf goes straight to CTC processing. That is not a shortcoming — the entire industry is built to supply cheap, colour-stable tea for iced tea and blending, and mechanisation is why it can.
How firm this is: Inferred by TeaHQ from general knowledge of the trade rather than taken from a source that states it.
What it produces
Black tea, machine-harvested at scale in Misiones and Corrientes, sold overwhelmingly as bulk commodity material into the iced-tea and blending trade.
How firm this is: Inferred by TeaHQ from general knowledge of the trade rather than taken from a source that states it. The mechanisation and the iced-tea destination are consistently reported; export shares vary by year and are not recorded here.
What it is known for
The categories this country is most associated with. Being known for a category is a fact about reputation and volume rather than about quality.
- Black tea — Tea taken deliberately through full enzymatic oxidation, giving the dark leaf, amber-to-red liquor and malty or brisk character most Western drinkers think of as simply 'tea'.
Growing regions in Argentina
Named districts with their own elevation, climate and character. Elevation figures are recorded as ranges because sources disagree on where a district begins and ends.
How tea is drunk here
Yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) dominates Argentine hot-drink culture and is not Camellia sinensis. TeaHQ keeps the two apart: the harvesting region overlaps, the plant does not.
Teas from Argentina
Sources
- TeaHQ editorial synthesis — TeaHQ
Everything on this page is TeaHQ’s own synthesis of widely-attested trade and production background. No external document stands behind it, which is why the statements here describe practice rather than assert measurements.
Written comparisons
Where TeaHQ has set this producing country against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.
- Argentina vs Brazil as tea origins — South America’s two tea producers, both subtropical and both organised around models that have no equivalent elsewhere. Argentina’s industry is defined by machine harvesting at a scale unmatched in tea; Brazil’s grew out of Japanese immigrant settlement and has contracted sharply.