The Asian Tea Alliance (ATA), a union of five tea-growing and consuming countries, was launched on Friday in Guizhou in China. The members of the alliance are the Indian Tea Association (ITA), China Tea Marketing Association (CTMA), Indonesian Tea Marketing Association, Sri Lanka Tea Board and Japan Tea Association. ATA plans to work towards enhancing tea trade, cultural exchanges, technology exchanges as well as globally promoting tea. It will also work towards enhancing global consumption of tea, while creating a sustainability agenda for the future of Asian tea. The forging of this alliance comes in the aftermath of the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in December 2018 between the Indian Tea Association and China Tea Marketing Association. The two associations signed the pact to promote green and black tea consumption in major tea markets of Europe, the U.S., Russia and West Asia, besides India and China.