Total Russian tea imports were likely to fall from 1,50,000 tonnes last year as hard pressed consumers cut back on the quantity and quality of the tea they drank, he said.

Immediately after rouble devaluation in August 1998, India saw a surge in Russian buying as a rupee-rouble trade deal between the two countries gave India an advantage over other suppliers both in terms of pricing and availability of cash.

"In 1998 we had a good year. But that huge amount of buying created considerable overstocking in the first-half of this year, and the summer was very long and hot, which doesn't encourage tea drinking," Chakraborty said.

"So there was low buying up to June, July and August, although now it has picked up and trade is active."

He added that low purchasing power meant that a Russian consumer, who might have drunk five cups a day before the crisis, would now drink perhaps three, and the tea was cheaper.

But he said an anticipated shortfall of almost 50,000 tonnes in India's total tea crop this year, expected in the range of 8,25,000 to 8,30,000 tonnes, meant prices were unlikely to weaken even if Russian imports dipped.

Last year, he said, India exported 2,10,000 tonnes, so Russia, taking nearly half the total, was easily India's largest export market.

At a news briefing on Tuesday to promote Beseda, a new tea specially blended for the Russian market, Yevgenii Rarov of Anglo-Dutch Unilever NV/Plc said Russia's tea market had been declining steadily since 1990.

Consumption in the whole of the Soviet Union stood at 2,20,000 tonnes per year then, falling to 1,70,000 tonnes in Russia in 1996, before reaching last year's import figure of 1,50,000 tonnes.

But Rarov added that over the same period, economic and cultural changes had led to a huge expansion in the number of brands and the variety of teas available in Russia.

Last year black tea accounted for 94 per cent of the Russian market, with aromatic teas taking four per cent and green teas two per cent. In Soviet times, Rarov said, just four or five blends of black tea were available in the whole country.

In the year since its launch and its attempt to place itself as the ideal tea for Russia, Beseda had captured a 6.1 per cent share of the local market, Unilever's Dmitry Markov said.

The perfect cup of tea is close to the heart of Russians, half of whose liquid intake is said to be in the form of tea.

"I must drink lots of tea or I cannot work," wrote 19th century novelist Leo Tolstoy. "Tea unleashes the potential which slumbers in the depth of my soul."