An Iranian visitor once told RealiTea about her grandfather's tea tree in a garden in Lahijan. It is a small memory, but it opens the right door into Iranian tea. Commercial bushes are pruned into low plucking tables; a plant left unplucked can rise into a shrub or small tree. In Lahijan, the tea plant can therefore be a crop, a garden companion and a piece of family continuity at the same time.
Iran's commercial tea is grown far from most of the country's dry interior. Its home is a humid strip on the southern Caspian coast, overwhelmingly in Gilan and, on a much smaller scale, western Mazandaran. Lahijan is the historic centre, but Langarud, Amlash, Rudsar, Siahkal, Fuman, Shaft, Ramsar, Tonekabon and neighbouring districts all belong to the story.
Black tea dominates. Most domestic leaf enters factories and follows an orthodox-style sequence of withering, rolling, oxidation, drying and sorting; green tea and handmade teas occupy much smaller niches. At the same time, Iran is a large tea importer. An Iranian brand or packing address therefore does not, by itself, prove that the leaf grew in Iran.
This guide keeps those layers separate: family plant and commercial bush, fresh leaf and dry tea, Lahijan origin and Iranian packing, fresh-leaf purchase grades and finished-tea sorts, national custom and individual preference. For the wider setting, see our guides to tea-producing countries, tea-growing regions, black tea and the six processing families of tea.
Iran in the world tea landscape
The latest completed harvest is the Iranian agricultural year 1404, corresponding mainly to 2025. The Iran Tea Organization records 97,555 tonnes of green leaf purchased and 21,950 tonnes of dry tea made from it. The previous year's guaranteed intake was 124,590 tonnes of green leaf. The 2025 reduction was substantial, but these are purchase and processing records, not two estimates of the same finished product: fresh leaf is mostly water.
The 2026 season is still in progress at the time of this revision. By 8 August the official intake had passed 89,000 tonnes of green leaf; on 13 August the head of the Tea Organization reported more than 20,800 tonnes of dry tea and said plucking was continuing. Those provisional numbers must not be presented as a final annual crop.
| Measure | Recorded figure | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Guaranteed green-leaf intake, 2025 | 97,555 tonnes | Completed agricultural-year 1404 purchase total |
| Dry tea from that intake, 2025 | 21,950 tonnes | Finished tea after water loss and manufacture |
| Green-leaf intake, 2024 | 124,590 tonnes | The comparison total reported by the Tea Organization in May 2025 |
| 2026 crop to 13 August | More than 20,800 tonnes of dry tea | Provisional; the harvest was still running |
| Growers and garden area | More than 55,000 growers; about 25,000 hectares | A May 2025 structural estimate for Gilan and Mazandaran |
| Tea imports, Iranian year 1403 | 48,902 tonnes; US$241.3 million | Full customs year ending 20 March 2025 |
| Tea exports, Iranian year 1403 | 15,673 tonnes; US$20.2 million | Customs movement, not necessarily single-origin garden tea |
Official area figures sometimes appear as 25,000, 26,000 or 28,000 hectares. They can refer to registered land, active gardens, active plus inactive gardens, or rounded estimates from different dates. The honest conclusion is about scale rather than a false last hectare: tens of thousands of small growers tend roughly twenty-five to twenty-eight thousand hectares across the two provinces.
Factory counts also depend on what is being counted. A structural Tea Organization page lists 182 factories; 158 participated by the end of the first 2025 plucking round and 161 had processed leaf later in that season. Licensed, contracted, active and currently receiving leaf are not identical categories.
Production, consumption and trade do not form one neat sum
Iran produces less tea than its market uses, so imports matter. In the first ten months of Iranian year 1404, customs recorded 50,717 tonnes of imports worth US$292.2 million, led by India, and 12,788 tonnes of exports worth US$15.4 million. Those flows can include inventories, blends, packing and re-export; they cannot be added mechanically to one crop year to calculate household consumption.
Published consumption estimates are unusually inconsistent. The head of the Tea Organization put annual demand near 100,000 tonnes in 2024, a factory-industry representative gave 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes in late 2025, and an older Tea Organization history page reported 126,000 tonnes for 2019. Different periods and definitions are evidently in play. It is safer to say that domestic dry-tea production covers a minority of the market than to publish a spurious current per-person ranking.
The southern Caspian tea belt
The Alborz Mountains trap moisture arriving from the Caspian Sea, creating a green northern margin unlike most of Iran. Tea occupies plains, old river terraces and lower foothills, often above rice fields or among citrus and other gardens. Rainfall, acidic soil and drainage permit the crop; slope, summer moisture, road access and the time from plucking to factory shape what a particular lot can become.
Gilan holds about nine-tenths of the registered tea area in the Tea Organization's historical description. Eastern Gilan is the densest core. Mazandaran's remaining gardens lie in its far west, not across the whole province. In 2025 Ramsar, Tonekabon and Abbasabad together produced 3,036 tonnes of green leaf and 657 tonnes of dry tea, illustrating how much smaller that provincial sector is.
| Landscape | Role in the crop | What the place name can establish |
|---|---|---|
| Lahijan and Siahkal | Historic centre of cultivation, research and manufacture on plains and foothills east of the Sefidrud | A meaningful origin only when the grower, factory or lot is actually traced there |
| Langarud, Amlash and Rudsar | A major eastern Gilan corridor of small gardens and factories extending towards the Mazandaran border | District identity, not one guaranteed flavour or grade |
| Fuman, Shaft, Rasht and the Fumanat | A more dispersed central and western Gilan landscape, with tea alongside rice, citrus and other farming | Genuine Gilan origin when documented; not automatically Lahijan tea |
| Ramsar, Tonekabon and Abbasabad | The smaller western Mazandaran belt, interspersed with citrus and development pressure | A distinct provincial origin whose small scale deserves explicit producer evidence |
Lahijan is therefore a centre, not a synonym for all Iranian tea. Nor is every packet carrying the name necessarily a protected single-origin product. A company may be based in Lahijan, a blend may include leaf from several northern districts, and an Iranian packer may also handle imported tea. Origin requires an origin statement, not inference from branding.
A tea tree in a garden, and bushes in a field
Camellia sinensis is an evergreen woody plant. Repeated pruning and plucking keep a commercial bush low enough to reach; the Tea Organization describes most northern plucking tables as about 40 to 50 centimetres high and recommends a somewhat higher managed table. Without that cycle, the same plant continues upwards. The grandfather's garden “tree” and the farmer's low bush are not different species but different lives given to the plant.
Much Iranian tea was established from seed rather than one uniform clone. Recent genetic work on southern Caspian material confirms that multiple genotypes and measurable diversity exist, while breeding and research programmes also work with named selections. A packet marked simply “Lahijan” should not be assigned a cultivar unless the producer supplies one.
Three seasons, usually four plucking rounds
Harvest begins around late April or early May and can continue into October. Official descriptions divide it into spring, summer and autumn, commonly with one spring round, two summer rounds and one autumn round. Weather and shoot readiness move the dates; “spring” is not a fixed day printed by nature.
| Period | Typical timing | Useful interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Spring or bahareh | Late April or early May into late May | First growth after winter; valued in the market, but still dependent on plucking and manufacture |
| First summer round | Usually June into July | Faster warm-season growth; not one uniform grade |
| Second summer round | Later summer | A separate intake period whose dates follow weather and factory capacity |
| Autumn | September into October | Final growth before the dormant and pruning season |
The recommended selective shoot is one bud with two or three tender leaves. Official technical guidance gives an average conversion of about 22.5 kilograms of dry tea from 100 kilograms of green leaf. Hand plucking can select those shoots individually; shears and powered harvesters can reduce labour cost but require an even table and careful operation to avoid excessive coarse leaf and stem. Neither “hand-picked” nor “machine-picked” is a complete quality verdict without the actual leaf standard.
From many small gardens to the factory
More than 55,000 growers spread across roughly 25,000 hectares indicates a fragmented, smallholder structure. Individual gardens can be tiny and tea may sit beside other crops. Fresh shoots begin changing as soon as they are picked, so collection routes and factory access matter. A romantic garden image cannot replace the practical questions: when was the leaf gathered, how long did it wait, and how was it handled before withering?
Iran's guaranteed-purchase system grades the incoming green leaf, sets annual prices and shares payment between factories and government. For the 2026 crop, grade-one leaf was priced at 42,000 tomans per kilogram and grade two at 30,000 tomans; factories were responsible for 75% and the state for 25%. These are farm-gate policy grades. They are not the same thing as the names sargol, momtaaz, shekasteh or qalam used for sorted dry tea.
The system can support growers and give factories a supervised intake channel, but a headline price is not the same as farm income. Yield, grade mix, payment timing, pruning, fertiliser, irrigation, fuel, labour and transport all sit between price and livelihood. A genuinely responsible tea seller should be willing to discuss the supply chain rather than stop at the word “natural”.
How Iranian black tea is made
Most identifiable Iranian-grown commercial tea is black tea made in an orthodox or orthodox-style system. “Orthodox” describes manufacture, not religious practice and not automatic excellence. The national standard also recognises granular CTC black tea, and Iranian researchers have trialled both processes. A round, granular tea on the Iranian market may be imported CTC, domestically processed material or a blend; appearance alone cannot prove origin.
| Stage | What happens | What can go wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Reception | Leaf is weighed, inspected and spread after transport from many gardens | Delay, compression or heat can create stale or uneven material |
| Withering | Moisture falls and the leaf becomes flexible enough to roll | Uneven beds or poor air control leave mixed moisture and aroma development |
| Rolling or maceration | Mechanical pressure twists and disrupts the leaf so enzymes and substrates meet oxygen | Too little gives weak transformation; too much can produce excessive fines or heat |
| Oxidation | The rolled leaf rests under managed time, temperature and humidity | Under- or over-oxidation flattens balance; “fermentation” is the older trade term |
| Drying | Heat arrests oxidation and reduces moisture for storage | Scorching, smoke, under-drying or later moisture uptake damage the lot |
| Sorting | Screens separate larger leaf, broken leaf and fine particles | Size can be mistaken for intrinsic quality; sorting cannot repair poor raw leaf |
Green tea stops enzymatic oxidation early with heat, then follows its own rolling and drying path. Iranian green tea is real but far smaller than black-tea production. White, oolong and other speciality teas should be treated as producer-specific projects, not as established national volume categories. For the processing distinctions, see our guide to tea types; herbal infusions belong in the separate tea or tisane category.
Handmade tea is heritage, not the whole industry
Traditional hand processing—known locally as das chai—was added to Iran's national intangible-heritage list in 2022. In 2026 the Tea History Museum in Lahijan hosted a workshop teaching the complete path from plucking through final drying. That revival matters, but it should not be used to portray tens of thousands of tonnes of factory tea as handmade. A handmade claim belongs to a documented maker and lot.
Iranian tea names: harvest, leaf size and marketing overlap
Iranian sellers use a practical vocabulary that does not map perfectly onto British-Indian grade abbreviations. The terms can refer to harvest, particle size, a maker's quality tier or several of those things at once. Sargol and momtaaz, in particular, are not protected cultivars or a universal national ladder. Two producers may sort and name them differently.
| Term | Usual market meaning | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|
| چای بهاره — chay-e bahareh | Tea associated with the spring plucking period | A fixed leaf size, named garden, cultivar or superior manufacture |
| سرگل — sargol | Literally “top flower”; commonly a premium, small or tippy spring black-tea sort | One legally uniform specification across all sellers |
| ممتاز — momtaaz | “Excellent” or “premium”; a producer's upper quality tier, often broken or medium leaf | A particular particle size or independent quality award |
| شکسته — shekasteh | Broken leaf, generally extracting faster than a large intact sort | Poor quality: clean broken leaf can be intentional and useful |
| قلم — qalam | A larger, wiry “pen-like” leaf sort, often with some tender stem | Whole-leaf plucking, spring harvest or Lahijan origin |
| خاکه — khakeh | Fine particles or dust, commonly suited to rapid extraction and tea bags | CTC manufacture; orthodox sorting also produces fines |
| ساده / معطر — plain / scented | Whether flavouring is declared | Leaf origin: either category can contain domestic or imported tea |
Some products combine Persian names with OP, BOP, FBOP or other international-looking marks. Treat those as the packer's declared sort, then inspect the leaf. Grade letters describe appearance and size more reliably than flavour. A clean qalam can be more interesting than a carelessly made “sargol”, and a broken tea may be exactly right for a quick, strong service.
From imported drink to a crop rooted in Lahijan
Iran knew tea long before it cultivated it. References occur in learned texts centuries earlier, but coffee remained the principal public drink into the nineteenth century. Falling tea prices, expanding trade through India and Russia, and the spread of samovars helped tea become the common drink by the late Qajar period. The name qahveh-khaneh—coffeehouse—survived even when tea had largely replaced coffee in the glass.
Several people attempted cultivation before it endured. The decisive figure was Mohammad Mirza Qajar, known as Kashef al-Saltaneh. The secure core of the story is that he served as Iran's consul in India, learned about tea cultivation, returned with seed and seedlings around 1900 and established successful plantings near Lahijan. A colourful later story says he disguised himself to learn British trade secrets; it is best treated as legend unless a source documents the episode.
| Date | Development | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Early to mid-19th century | Tea moves from limited use towards a widely traded everyday drink; samovar culture expands | Consumption became established before domestic agriculture |
| 1880s | Early Iranian attempts to establish the crop show promise but do not create a lasting industry | Kashef al-Saltaneh was pivotal, but not literally the first person to plant a seed |
| Around 1900–02 | Kashef al-Saltaneh returns from India and plants seed and seedlings near Lahijan | The durable beginning of commercial Iranian tea |
| 1932 | The first modern tea-processing factory begins work in Lahijan | Factory manufacture supports expansion beyond household processing |
| 1934 | A tea research station is established in Lahijan | Agronomy, plant material and manufacture gain an institutional base |
| 1958 | The publicly owned Iran Tea Organization is founded | State purchasing and market policy become central to the sector |
| 2022–26 | Handmade tea skill is nationally listed and new teaching workshops are held in Lahijan | Craft processing is being preserved alongside industrial production |
| 2025 | The 54-hectare historic Falahat garden in Lahijan is entered on Iran's national heritage list | The landscape of the first enduring cultivation is recognised as heritage |
Kashef al-Saltaneh's mausoleum now forms part of the Iran National Tea Museum in Lahijan. That is a better place to understand the history than a polished one-sentence origin myth: the museum holds documents, equipment and objects from cultivation, manufacture and service. His legacy is not only a heroic name. It is a living belt of gardens, factories, research and family plants.
Tea in Iranian hospitality
Tea in Iran is everyday rather than reserved for one formal ceremony. It appears at breakfast, after meals, during visits, in workplaces and while business is discussed. Offering a glass is a practical act of welcome. That ubiquity should not be turned into a claim that every Iranian home serves tea in the same way.
A well-documented service brews a strong infusion in a small teapot—quri—resting above a kettle or samovar. Concentrate goes into a small glass, the estekan, and hot water adjusts it to por-rang (deeper-coloured or stronger) or kam-rang (lighter). The glass stands on a saucer, the nalbeki. Electric kettles and contemporary cups have joined this equipment; tradition is a repertoire, not a museum rule.
Qand on the side
The best-known sweetening method is qand-pahlu: place a small piece of hard sugar in the mouth and sip tea through it. Sugar can also go into the glass, and sweets, dried fruit or nabat may accompany the drink. A 1970 national survey cited by Encyclopaedia Iranica found qand-pahlu dominant at the time, while Gilan and Mazandaran more often put sugar into the tea. That dated regional finding is interesting evidence, not an instruction for every present-day guest.
Northern practice has also included dried sour lemon crushed in the glass. Cardamom, saffron, rose, cinnamon and bergamot appear in parts of the modern market, but none is an obligatory marker of Persian tea. Plain tea is equally Persian. When tasting origin, start without flavouring or sugar; add accompaniments later for the cultural service you want.
Tea houses, coffeehouse names and storytelling
Tea took over many older coffeehouses without erasing their name. Historical qahveh-khaneh or chaykhaneh were places to hear news, play games and listen to poetry or episodes from the Shahnameh. Some developed a distinctive school of narrative painting. Modern establishments range from surviving traditional rooms to restaurants, roadside stops and contemporary cafés, so “the Persian teahouse” is not one frozen interior.
Iranian and Turkish tea: neighbours, not copies
Iran and Turkey both grow tea near the Caspian–Black Sea arc and both build hospitality around black tea, sugar and small glasses. The resemblance is useful; treating the two traditions as interchangeable is not.
| Feature | Iran | Turkey |
|---|---|---|
| Growing centre | Southern Caspian belt, led by Gilan and Lahijan | Eastern Black Sea belt, led by Rize |
| Industry scale | A smaller crop supplying a minority of a market that also imports heavily | A much larger crop with a strongly domestic centre of gravity |
| Common manufacture | Orthodox-style black tea in large and broken market sorts | Predominantly broken black tea designed for strong concentrate |
| Brewing equipment | Small teapot above kettle or samovar; concentrate diluted in the glass | Stacked çaydanlık; concentrate diluted in an ince belli glass |
| Buying vocabulary | Bahareh, sargol, momtaaz, shekasteh, qalam | Brand blends, particle grades and, in some cases, protected Rize origin |
How to read an Iranian tea packet
Start with what the label actually establishes. Under Iranian standard guidance, a prepacked tea should identify the product type, maker and address, batch, production and expiry dates, storage, net weight and any flavouring, alongside the relevant licence or standard details. Those fields support traceability, but a factory address is still not an agricultural origin.
| Question | Strong evidence | Weak evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Did the leaf grow in Iran? | Explicit “Iranian-grown” statement, named province or district, and a traceable producer or lot | Persian script, Iranian brand, flag, packing address or the word “Lahijan” in a trade name |
| When was it harvested? | Crop year plus spring, summer or autumn plucking | Production date alone, which can be the packing date |
| What is the leaf style? | Visible dry leaf and a declared sort such as qalam or broken | “Premium” without a leaf description |
| Is it plain? | Ingredient list naming only tea | Natural-looking imagery or an undeclared aroma |
| Is it organic or pesticide-free? | Recognised certification for that lot and market, or a relevant laboratory report | “Natural”, “traditional”, “mountain”, “chemical-free” or winter climate alone |
| Is the seller accountable? | Batch code, contactable maker and specific answers about sourcing | A romantic origin story without names or documents |
This matters because customs records show large imports from India, Sri Lanka, Kenya and other origins. Imported tea is not inherently inferior, and blending is not deception when declared. The problem is an origin claim that asks the packet design to do the work of traceability.
Be equally careful with “pesticide-free”. Iranian officials frequently promote the low-input character of northern tea, and winter dormancy can reduce some pest pressure. Yet organic is a certified production system, not a synonym for local, and the Iranian standard explicitly treats pesticide residues as something tea must be tested for. Ask for certification or lot evidence instead of converting a national reputation into a universal guarantee.
How to brew Iranian tea
A controlled tasting and a Persian household service answer different questions. Use the first to compare leaves fairly and the second to explore strength, dilution and hospitality. The starting points below are deliberately adjustable; water chemistry, particle size and personal preference matter more than ritual precision.
| Purpose or style | Leaf and water | Time | Adjustment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Comparative black-tea tasting | 3 g per 200 ml; 95°C; neutral porcelain | 5 minutes | Taste plain; record aroma, body, astringency and finish before adding sugar |
| Broken or small-leaf black tea | 2.5–3 g per 200 ml; 95°C | 4–6 minutes | Shorten before reducing leaf if bitterness arrives before aroma |
| Large qalam black tea | 3–3.5 g per 200 ml; 95°C | 7–10 minutes | Give the large sort time; increase leaf for body rather than boiling it hard |
| Persian concentrate | About 6–8 g per 500 ml in a small pot above a kettle | 8–12 minutes | Pour concentrate into the estekan and dilute to each guest's preferred colour |
| Iranian green tea | 3 g per 200 ml; 75–80°C | 2–3 minutes | Lower heat or time if sharpness hides the leaf |
For a kettle-and-pot service, warm the pot, add the leaf, pour in freshly boiled water and let the pot rest over gentle heat rather than actively boiling the liquor. Fill each glass partly with concentrate and top up with hot water. Offer qand on the side instead of assuming every guest wants sweetness. Our loose-leaf tea guide explains the basic variables in more detail.
Farmers, climate and the future of the gardens
The completed 2025 harvest shows climate risk in numbers. Mazandaran recorded 24% less green leaf than in 2024 and 27% less dry tea; local officials cited drought and higher temperatures. The 2026 crop was running ahead of the same point a year earlier by mid-August, which is encouraging but does not erase the volatility. Final output still depends on late-summer and autumn weather.
Water is only one pressure. Tea officials and local factory operators also identify land conversion, villa construction, high land prices, inheritance fragmentation, costly inputs, ageing growers and weak incentives to maintain old gardens. Pruning, rejuvenation, drainage, irrigation and road access require investment long before a packet can promise “ancient bushes”.
Keeping a well-managed tea cover on steep foothills can slow surface runoff and reduce direct rain impact on soil. That is a real landscape service described by the Tea Organization, but a tea monoculture is not the same ecosystem as the Hyrcanian forest. Garden preservation, soil cover, careful drainage, input records and surrounding biodiversity all need to be assessed rather than inferred from a green photograph.
What a credible sustainability claim should show
- A named garden, grower group or factory rather than only a province.
- The harvest year, leaf standard and time from plucking to manufacture.
- How the fresh-leaf price was set and when growers were paid.
- Input records, residue testing and recognised organic certification where claimed.
- Water, soil-cover, pruning and land-preservation practices suited to that garden.
- Who performed the field and factory work, under what terms, without relying on picturesque anonymity.
Buying traceable Iranian tea can support a vulnerable domestic garden economy, but nationality is not a sustainability seal. The strongest purchase is one where origin, processing, payment and claims remain specific enough to check.
A RealiTea tasting flight for Iran
The most useful first flight is not four flavoured blends. Choose four documented expressions that isolate harvest and leaf size: a spring sargol or momtaaz, a large qalam, a summer or autumn broken tea and an Iranian green or genuinely handmade lot. If the fourth cannot be traced, compare two factories from different districts instead.
- Brew every black tea at 3 grams per 200 millilitres, 95°C for five minutes. Brew green tea separately at its lower temperature.
- Record dry-leaf size, uniformity and aroma; liquor colour and clarity; then aroma, texture, astringency, bitterness, sweetness and finish.
- Repeat the larger qalam for longer and the broken tea for less time. This shows extraction speed rather than rewarding one particle size by accident.
- Only after the plain comparison, make a Persian concentrate and try qand, nabat or another accompaniment. Origin tasting and hospitality service can then illuminate each other.
The grandfather's tea tree is a fitting place to end. It resists two easy mistakes at once: Iran's tea is not merely an import statistic, and Lahijan is not merely a romantic word on a packet. The plant is alive in gardens, on small farms, in factories and in memory. The best way to honour that closeness is with precise sourcing, patient brewing and room for one real story to remain more powerful than a dozen invented tasting notes.
Sources and further reading
- Iran Tea Organization: completed 1404 crop purchases and dry-tea output (18 March 2026).
- Iran Tea Organization: provisional 2026 green-leaf intake (8 August 2026).
- Ministry of Agriculture statement on 2026 dry-tea output and continuing harvest (13 August 2026).
- Iran Tea Organization: 1405 guaranteed green-leaf prices and payment shares (4 April 2026).
- Iran Tea Organization: history, geography and structure of Iranian tea.
- Iran Tea Organization and Iran Customs: full-year 1403 tea imports and exports.
- Iran Tea Organization and Iran Customs: first ten months of 1404 tea trade.
- Iran Tea Organization: plucking standard, bush management and green-to-dry conversion.
- Iran Tea Organization: tea gardens, slope cover and erosion.
- IRNA: 2025 first plucking, factories, growers, area and 2024 comparison (30 May 2025).
- IRNA: 2025 Mazandaran harvest, drought and land-conversion pressures (30 November 2025).
- Iran National Standards Organization: black, green, bagged and scented tea guidance.
- Encyclopaedia Iranica: “Tea”, including cultivation, manufacture and service history.
- Encyclopaedia Iranica: “Coffeehouse”, including the shift from coffee to tea and storytelling culture.
- Iran Ministry of Cultural Heritage: national registration of Lahijan's first tea garden (13 January 2025).
- Visit Iran: Iran National Tea Museum and Kashef al-Saltaneh mausoleum.
- Iran Cultural Heritage News Agency: handmade-tea heritage workshop in Lahijan (22 May 2026).
- Plant Genetic Resources: diversity of tea in the southern Caspian region (2023).
- Iranian Journal of Crop Sciences: responses of northern Iranian tea clones to water deficit (2019).
- Young Journalists Club: 2025 output decline and industry consumption estimate (1 November 2025).
- Tehran Times: Tea Organization's 2024 production and consumption estimates (21 May 2024).