Few people know that when they sip a cup of English Breakfast tea, even purchased from the iconic English retailer, Marks & Spencer, the tea that fuels their morning culinary ritual is today sourced mainly from Africa.
For a long time now, breakfast teas have been bought from African producers principally because the price of the commodity beats that of its predecessors while providing the briskness and nutty brown color bearing the blend’s distinctive amber hue. Most producers still blend some Assam and Ceylon tea with their English breakfast but Africa (Kenya in particular), once a blip on the map of teas, has become the staple of this beverage just as teas from various African countries rise in quality and versatility. African teas are even beginning to be enjoyed as single estate orthodox – a development that the British colonizers who brought Assam seeds (Camelia sinensis var. assamica) to the continent, to produce grainy CTC (Crush Tear Curl) tea, would never have anticipated.
Tea may not be the first crop that comes to mind when one envisages Africa’s vast agricultural landscape, but it is one of the continent’s subtle but significant agricultural drivers. From the mist-covered highlands of Kenya to the rolling hills of Rwanda to the pristine fields of Mozambique, home of the largest organic tea garden in the world, as well as places like Malawi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Tanzania, Africa has become a global force in tea production. The industry supports millions of livelihoods, fuels national economies and shapes the daily rhythms of entire communities. Yet behind the numbers are stories of resilience, reinvention, and a growing push to claim a larger share of the value created from leaf to cup.
Today, African tea producers are navigating a complex blend of challenges and opportunity. Climate pressures are shifting harvest patterns, while global competition is pushing growers to innovate, diversify and build bold new brands. Local entrepreneurs are stepping into the spotlight, redefining what African tea can be — not only a commodity shipped abroad – but also a premium product with a distinct identity.
In what follows, WTN dives into three tea regions, which are not only distinct from one another but also lie at front lines the continent’s tea transformation, exploring how local communities are being impacted, and how the continent’s place in the global tea market is developing.
Kenya: Origin and Driver of African Tea
While tea has been consumed on the continent in ancient civilizations like that of Egypt for far longer (archeological evidence dates tea cultivation to have taken place at least a millennium before the pharaohs built the Great Pyramids of Giza), Kenya is where it was first commercialized. The Caine brothers who were British colonizers had established the first plantation around the turn of the twentieth century in present day Limuru, though it was only during the 1920s that the British tea company Brooke Bond sent ‘their man’ Malcolm Fyers Bell, to establish the first commercial estates in what was then the Empire’s youngest colony. Bell’s legacy is that Kenya, which gained its independence from the British in 1963, has made Africa the third largest global producer of tea after China and India.
Most Kenyan tea is grown in its highlands within what’s known as the West and East Rift (which are narrow valleys of geological significance) at altitudes of well over 5000 feet – a region also is also known for its coffee plantations (though coffee is typically grown at even higher altitudes in places like the Mount Kenya and the Aberdare Mountain ranges located south of the main tea belt).
With its volcanic soils and favorable weather patterns such as well-distributed rainfall of between 1200 mm to 1400 mm per annum as well as its location along the equator, unlike most tea-producing countries, Kenyan tea can be cultivated year-round. This explains why, despite being cultivated on significantly less land than other countries, the nation produces between 9-10% of the world’s tea, and with the top two tea producers, China and India having vast domestic markets compared to Kenya’s minimal domestic market, Kenya accounts for around a 18-25% of global exports, making it the second most prolific supplier of tea on global markets after China – this despite having one ninth the area under cultivation compared to China and using only around 5% of the total area for tea cultivation, globally.
Tea is a critically important agricultural commodity in Kenya accounting for 16.3% of the country’s total exports and the second highest source of foreign exchange making it a sustantial driver of the nation’s economy.
Character of the Industry and Emergence of the Small-Scale Sector
Tea production in Kenya has a bifurcated profile. It is cultivated by large corporations that run traditional commercial tea estates, historically including Unilever, James Finlay Ltd., Camelia plc (the largest tea company in the world), Kapchorua Tea Company Ltd., and newer non-British origin tea companies such as Sotik Tea Company Ltd., which was incorporated in 1978 and has grown to become one of the largest private tea companies in the nation. The remainder of the tea cultivation sector lies on small farms that are run as cooperatives under the aegis of the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) Ltd. Independents unaffiliated with either sector have evolved in recent decades, and they buy leaf from the KTDA and the large multinationals, adding another layer to the market.
Due to abuses of workers uncovered in news exposés (some quite horrific) in recent years, even at Fair Trade Certified plantations, which have led to litigation and even divestment, the larger companies are now hesitant to respond to media requests including those sent out by WTN. However, the KTDA, which has become a success story both in growth and community resilience, was quite open to tell this writer their story.
As Vincent Mwingirwa, General Manager in charge of sales and marketing of the KTDA, asserts, the agency represents around 700,000 farmers who each own less than a single acre of land on which tea is cultivated. This stands in stark contrast to the large multinationals, operating comparatively massive estates where those working the land are employees. The members of the KTDA are not only owners but are also active in cultivation.
Formerly a parastatal, which is a term used in Africa a publicly run entity – then called the Kenya Tea Development Authority – KTDA Ltd. was established after the factories owned by the government authority were privatized.
According to Mwingirwa, the small-scale farms are located in the vicinity of a factory “catchment” where their green leaf is processed. More so than the certifications that were created by large Western beverage companies to uplift working conditions on tea estates and coffee plantations, emergence of the KTDA has offered a form of tangible empowerment for the small-scale landowner because it has democratized the largest tea sector in Kenya.
Organizing and Democratizing Small-Scale Tea Production
Mwingirwa says the small-scale sector is run through corporations to “organize and align a vast number of owners with a common goal but maybe different ideas on how to achieve it.” Without a body like the KTDA, the owners would not have strength in numbers, nor would they be able to operate in a cohesive way. The KTDA essentially, prevents the small-scale sector from devolving into chaos, giving a measure of empowerment to the farmers in the process.
“So the individual farmers are the shareholders in the factory where they deliver their leaf,” Mwingirwa describes, adding: “And in turn now, these factories, because the factories are companies by their own right, under the company law….the farmers own [for example] ‘Factory Company Limited’, and in turn, the ‘Factory Company Limited’ owns a share of KTDA Holdings Ltd.”
KTDA Holdings Ltd. [also known as KTDA (H)], was founded in 1999 with equity of fifty-four corporate shareholders, which are the factories that are, in turn, owned directly by the farmers. These factory companies process the leaves of the owner-farmers located in the catchment that surrounds them. It is a structure that takes input from the farmers in running the sector, offering a form of indirect democratic control over how the overall operation is run.
“However, we have 71 processing factories because some of the fifty-four company factories have more than one processing factory, and these 71 processing centers process the green leaf of all of the 700,000 small-scale farmers,” Mwingirwa elaborates.
KTDA (H) has a largely elected board of directors, which appoints a management board of which Mwingirwa is a member, and his role, as he explains carries significant responsibility: “So, I'm responsible now for marketing and sales of the tea [processed] from all these 71 small-scale tea factories,”
Administratively, the farms managed by the KTDA are split into zones that are demarcated by topography. Ridges separate the zones from one another. The smallest zone contains three factories while the largest is home to nine. There are a total of twelve tea zones managed by the KTDA over twenty-one counties in Kenya.
“Now, remember I said that each factory is a company limited on its own accord? So, at each factory, there is a board of directors who are elected by the farmers,” Mwingirwa says.
Mwingirwa says that as long as they meet the criteria stated in the Articles of Association [the founding rules] of the company, any farmer can stand for election to the board of directors of a factory. These boards, in turn, elect a representative for each Tea Zone to sit on the KTDA (H) National Board of Directors.
Noting that in Kenya, a gender balance law is in effect requiring a minimum of one third female representation, Mwingirwa says where the factory boards are dominated by men, female independent director(s) is/are brought to bring the boards into compliance with the law.
“So, the biggest challenge, as always, is aligning the thinking of the board at the factory level with the thinking of the board to the national level, given that the boad at the national level is representing this wide array of factories,” Mwingirwa remarks.
He adds: “But by and large, it has…it is a democratic approach. Where there's an issue that requires a position to be taken, they'll take it through a process – a pro and con process, and the most popular, the least harmful will be adopted, and it becomes a policy of the factories of the KTDA.”
While large companies have started using mechanical sheers on their plantations to improve productivity, all the tea plucked by KTDA farmers is done by hand, which generally leads to a better quality of leaf plucked, especially for orthodox tea cultivation. In total, these small-scale cultivators account for around 60% of all the tea produced in Kenya.
Focus on Quality
“The farmers pluck leaf from their tea farms, and they deliver to a collection point, which is called the tea buying center,” Mwingirwa explains, elaborating: “At each tea buying center, they [the farmers] have elected five members of a tea buying center committee, and they have bylaws that they abide by, at a governance level.”
The whole point of the buying centres is to offer leaf, which the farmers will think will make the highest quality tea, and hence, fetch the highest prices at the Mombasa tea auction.
Mwingirwa says that KTDA teas do well at auction: “when you look at the… the auction prices in Mombasa, you'll find that, KTDA prices are always high up there,” he says.
Indeed, despite a 9% decline in yield from 2022 to 2023 (the last years for which such data is publicly available) overall, the KTDA average earnings per kilogram rose by almost 18% resulting in a 7.6% increase in payments to farmers during a period of falling production. This is indicative of how well KTDA teas are doing on the market.
The price rises are needed. Just like tea plantations in other parts of the world, the costs of running even small-scale plantations in Kenya are increasing – primarily labor and electricity, according to Mwingirwa.
The output of the KTDA (H) factories is mainly CTC. However, Mwingirwa states that twelve factories also produce some orthodox leaf because these mainly CTC factories have installed one dedicated line to produce orthodox tea. And one KTDA factory solely makes orthodox tea.
That said, Kenya is still firmly a CTC producer. According to Mwingirwa, in Kenya, out of around 600 million Kilograms of tea produced annually by all producers including the large corporate sector, less than 20 million Kilograms is produced as orthodox, which is less than a third of one percent of total tea production. Still, Mwringa is enthusiastic about their foray into orthodox tea because of the ancillary benefits.
“We have been able to ship tea, even CTC, to destinations that we never shipped before we did Orthodox, and it is shipping there on the back of Orthodox,” Mwringa says.
Moreover, he is keen to point out that the KTDA also produces specialty teas like white tea and purple tea on special order, amounting to roughly 20 kg of each per year.
Many know white tea as the nascent leaves of the first harvest, with white colored fibers, protecting the young leaves and giving them their color. Having a floral bouquet and a silky texture as well as restricted availability, white tea tends to sell in the ultra-premium category.
Purple tea is lesser known. Named for its color, which is brought out by the large quantity of natural anthocyanin content in the leaves – an antioxidant contained in similarly colored fruits like blueberries and grapes and known for health benefits. Once exclusive to Kenya, more recently, small batches of Darjeeling purple tea have been cultivated. Darjeeling’s Gopaldhara Tea Estate, cultivates purple tea at altitudes akin to that of Kenyan plantations. Purple tea is typically hand-sorted and hand-rolled like white tea and skips the oxidation process to preserve the anthocyanins. Floral in aroma, the brew bears a strong similarity to white tea. In the cup, it appears pinkish very much like pink grapefruit juice. As a rare tea, it, too, is on very high end of the price scale.
Increasing Connections Across the Globe
The cultivation of purple tea in India demonstrates that Indian tea makers, despite having a longer history cultivating, processing, and selling tea, are not above learning from their African colleagues. That Kenya may have driven Darjeeling to experiment with a rare tea cultivated there, while little known, is sound evidence of the integration of the global tea industry.
It didn’t stop with India: Mwingirwa visited Japan to propose their using KTDC produced green tea for tencha, which could be ground into matcha by the granite mills located there.
“I visited, actually, one of the factories in Osaka where they are doing [sic.] tencha [processing tencha into matcha] and I was trying to interest them in, doing African matcha,” Mwingirwa recounts, adding: “Now that they are running short of leaf. Yeah. So that's why the conversation, became very interesting for me, in a way.”
While Mwingirwa’s proposal didn’t really land, as the demand for matcha increases, worldwide, some companies on the island may well find it worth their while to train Kenyan tea cultivators in growing tencha to help meet demand. Currently, it is probably more expedient for them to buy green leaf from countries that cultivate the same varietals and aren’t so far away such as China and other Asian countries. However, one day, if demand continues to spike, Mwingirwa’s offer may hold some appeal.
According to the Tea Board of Kenya, in 2024, 94% of Kenyan tea was exported. Currently, Pakistan is their largest export market, followed by Egypt, the UK and the UAE. Interestingly, Kenyans don’t drink much of their own tea. “Maybe in the morning,” suggests Mwingirwa. “But this too with very little tea – it’s mainly milk with sugar.”
“They are into other beverages like the alcoholic kind,” Mwingirwa quips with a smirk.
One cannot discount the fact that as diversified as Kenyan tea is becoming, there are just some beverages it can’t replace. So, just as Kenyans are sticking to their favorite beverages, we aren’t likely to find English Breakfast tea, even Kenyan sourced, outpacing a good old pint at an English pub.
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