Kenya continues to maintain her niche as a regional leader in tea offerings and sales at the Mombasa Auction Centre.
At this week's tea auction the country has committed over 3.1 million kilograms compared to her closest competitor and neighbour Uganda who will only be offering 457,314 kilograms.
Kenya will also offer an additional 354,592 kilograms of secondary grade of tea while Uganda has committed 195,038 in this category.
According to the weekly report from the Africa Tea Brokers (ATB), volumes from East African Community (EAC) Rwanda has offered over 217,000 kilograms of main grade tea while Burundi is offering slightly over 56,000 kilograms of main grade tea.
Other countries that have made offerings at this week's tea auction are Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Malawi.
Zambia, Madagascar and Ethiopia will not be making any offers at this week's auction.
Though tea production in Kenya is expected to show an improvement, there has been reported decline in areas east of the Rift Valley.
Decline in production has also been reported in Tanzania which has been attributed to drier conditions with temperatures ranging between highs of 27 and lows of 9 degrees Celsius.
Production is also low in Uganda's tea growing areas of Fort Portal, Bushenyi, Kibaale and Hoima.
Collision course
Meanwhile Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) and some multinational companies are on a collision course over tea hawking in the Gusii area.
The row follows the banning hawking of green tea leaves to middlemen by small scale farmers affiliated to KTDA.
Security officers have now been mandated to arrest and prosecute anybody found contravening the directive.
The Tea Act Cap 343 section13 (1), (2) and (3) stipulates that any person found hawking tea is liable to prosecution and shall be guilty of an offence that attract penalties, which includes a fine not exceeding Ksh 500, 000 or ten years imprisonment or both.
During a stakeholders meeting attended by District Commissioners Benson Leparmorijo (Nyamira North), Noor Hassan (Borabu) and Muktar Ali (Nyamira), KTDA officials, multinational agents and tea factory managers differed sharply over whether the ban on green tea leave hawking should stay or not.
Some participants wanted tea hawking to be regulated but this cannot be done unless the Tea Act is repealed first.
A section of participants wondered why KTDA still controlled the tea industry despite the sector being liberalized and tea factories, formerly managed by the Agency, reverting to private companies owned by small scale growers.
Multinational companies are offering farmers Ksh 15 per kilogram of tea while KTDA offers Ksh 10.50 per kilogram. 
But KTDA offers bonuses to farmers at the end of each year at an average rate of the same amount while multinationals who buy tea through agents do not.
KTDA also loans farmers fertilizer whose cost they recover during bonus payment.
KTDA further remits terms of operational cess to various local authorities to help improve roads in tea producing areas.
Samuel Ndubi, the secretary of Tea Outgrowers Association and Sotik Tea Company general manager Nigel Leakey accused KTDA of exploiting small scale tea growers, prompting them to sell the produce to multinational companies who offer them attractive prices.
Leakey said there was need by the government to repeal the Tea (Amendment) Act of 1999 which he said gave KTDA enormous powers over other players in the tea industry.
