London, Sep 4 - Britain's favourite drink could become dearer because dry weather in India, Sri Lanka and Kenya are fast depleting global stocks.

Production in some areas is down 15 percent and stocks have plummeted about 80,000 to 90,000 tonnes of tea, according to Bill Gorman, executive chairman of the UK Tea Council.

'Where a box of 80 tea bags in the UK only rose about 10p from 1999 to 2009 because of over-supply of tea, now that oversupply has gone we are starting to see those prices rising again,' he said.

In Britain the retail price for tea has already risen by more than 10 percent this year.

The price of 80 supermarket tea bags has crept up from an average 1.