KENYA's tea exports have declined in the past three weeks due to instability in Egypt which is the single largest market.

Traders said this coupled with the ongoing Ramadhan period in other leading tea importers like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey has led to a drop in sales at the Mombasa tea auction held twice a week.

Kenya is the world's leading exporter of black tea. Last year the country earned Sh112 billion from tea exports.

According to tea traders in Mombasa, the average price at the weekly tea auction had gone down by Sh 20 per kilo of tea forcing traders to put a freeze on fresh orders for fear that it would not sell.

"We have continued to experience a major decline in quantity of tea being bought from Kenya with the main effect coming from our main market which is Egypt," said Brian Ngwiri, East African Tea Trade Association marketing manager.

He said the ongoing Muslim fasting period of Ramadhan has worsened the situation as Muslim countries top the market for the country's tea.

"Grade PF 1 among other grades of tea has had a major decline and we expect this to remain down until after Ramadhan," Ngwiri added.

Egypt sources 23 per cent of all its tea imports from Kenya which translates to between six and eight million kilograms of tea imports from Kenya per month.

Tea exports to Egypt stood at 42 million kilograms between January-May earning the country Sh 10.4 billion. A total of 204 million kilograms were sold to 58 countries at Sh52.5 billion.

"We export between 1.5 and 2 million kilograms of tea to Egypt when things are normal. We have however suffered a major blow in the last three weeks where we have gone without business," said Kevin Dago of Juja Exporters.

Ngwiri however said they expected the market to get back to normal after Ramadan, even with the Egyptian unrest.

"We expect a rise since last week's auction appeared promising with the market showing signs of recovering," he said.

Kenya holds two auctions per week with Egypt and Pakistan buying more than 40 per cent of the Kenyan tea export.

The Tea Board of Kenya had earlier projected tea earnings to hit Sh120 billion this year. Last week, the Kenya Tea Development Authority (KTDA) imported 64,000 metric tonnes of fertilizer for Kenyan tea farmers. The fertilizer is meant to help increase tea yields by 24 percent this year.