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That Rwanda is known to many for civil war and genocide perhaps more than anything else, making most Westerners, unfortunately, oblivious to its natural beauty and strong potential for growth, is an unfortunate consequence of its turbulent history. A countryside of lush, green, and rolling landscapes, volcanic peaks, sparkling lakes, misty forests, verdant tea plantations, and abundant biodiversity, has earned it the moniker, "Land of a Thousand Hills."
From these heights, some of the most high-quality teas in Africa are cultivated. Demonstrating this, Rwanda’s oldest tea plantation and factory, Sorwathe Ltd., acquired in 2024 by Luxmi Tea Co Pvt. Limited of Kolkata from the Wertheim family, was awarded the Gold Medal by the Annual North American Tea Conference in Charleston, South Carolina, at the Chairman’s dinner, for its orthodox (OP 1) tea from the company’s Rukeri Estate, making it the overall winner this past September. It also won the Silver Medal for their green (OP) tea sourced from the company’s Mill Estate.
At another of Luxmi Estates’ subsidiaries in Rwanda, Silverback Tea Company, shone at the most recent Global Tea Championship held by The World Tea Expo (run by Questex LLC, the parent company of this publication) in Las Vegas during March, 2025, winning the prestigious “Origin Award” for its orthodox White Tea cultivated at Gisovu estate.
Calling Gisovu’s recognition at the expo akin to winning an “Oscar” of tea, Luxmi’s managing director, Rudra Chatterjee credited the workers and farmers for making Gisovu tea of highest quality, which is essential popularizing them throughout different markets – something Luxmi is committed to doing in all its tea-growing regions.
CEO of Silverback Tea Company Ltd., Nzeki Samuel Munyao reiterated this sentiment, and stated that this international recognition, “highlights our strong commitment to quality and the excellent collaboration among all players in the value chain.”
Silverback Tea is a premium Rwandan tea brand and producer that celebrates the rich terroir and heritage of Rwanda’s rolling hills. Rooted in the country’s fertile volcanic soils and high-altitude climate, Silverback Tea sources its leaves from four major estates — Gisovu, Pfunda, Rugabano, and more recently Sorwathe estate and factory— known for producing bright, brisk, and high-quality teas that are Rainforest Alliance certified and grown without pesticides.
Named as an homage to the iconic silverback gorillas native to Rwanda’s jungles (as well as Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo), the brand emphasizes sustainability, community empowerment, and environmental stewardship. Beyond crafting exceptional teas, Silverback Tea Company works closely with thousands of smallholder farmers, supports local development initiatives, and promotes ethical and regenerative agricultural practices, aiming to share the finest teas from Rwanda with the world.
The Evolution of Tea in Rwanda
Compared to Kenya, which produces around twenty times more tea than Rwanda, the Rwandan tea industry is relatively new, really becoming established in the 1970s. Speaking to WTN, Munyao recounts that, initially, the tea industry in Rwanda was run by the government but after a stable government was put in place following the horrific civil war that raged in the ‘90s, the government saw the need to bring in the private sector to improve production and add a measure of professionalism that was absent when the industry was a public sector one.
“When we talk about the different types of cultivars in Africa. There will be the assamica which is really what is, quite prevalent in Africa – the varieties that came from Assam, because we took it, we took it in Africa, from India, and… I mean, it's… it's high yielding, and it fits very, very comfortably to the climate of Africa,” Munyao says.
He adds: “Yes. And it established quite well in Rwanda unlike the Camellia sinensis sinensis, which is which has a small leaf structure. I saw a bit of this in Darjeeling when I visited. And because planters in Africa who are looking for quick returns, the market was ready for this high-yielding assamica. I mean, you just want to go with what will give you high volumes very, very quickly. And, they keep developing clones which are high-yielding.”
Munyao explains that during the period of nationalization, Rwanda relied on expertise from Kenya because the Kenyans were already intimately familiar with the cultivars. While it didn’t take long for Rwanda to multiply yields dramatically, privatization was essential to improving quality, which farmers soon realized would differentiate Rwandan tea from Kenyan tea and that grown in other African countries.
Highland Teas – Quality Over Quantity
Planters in Rwanda soon realized that it would be impossible to produce tea in the quantities produced by Kenya.
“Rwanda's production remained low. I mean, to date, it's still about 38 million kilograms, when compared to 630-odd millions from Kenya,” says Munyao.
He adds: “Initially [Rwandan tea was] grown in valley areas, but has shifted to highland teas, which was new – and when I talk about new, I'm referring from 15 years ago when we shifted our focus to high altitude. We're talking about 1800 meters to 2300 meters [around 5900 to 7500 feet]. Those are the new altitudes that the tea is going into. So, most of this tea will be slow growing and low yielding, but very, very good qualities!”
It is the high altitude and mineral rich terroir composed of volcanic soil, which favors the cultivation of orthodox tea. Whereas other tea-growing areas are known for their granular CTC (Crush Tear Curl) tea, Rwandan orthodox leaf (evidenced by the recent international awards won) is having a profound impact on global markets.
“When you look at the price realization of Rwandan teas compared to Kenyan teas in terms of average selling prices, you will now start to see a differentiation in the average selling prices after the privatization,” Munyao asserts.
Indeed, Luxmi Estates’ managing director, Rudra Chatterjee proudly reiterates this by mentioning how teas grown by their Rwandan subsidiaries are now garnering top prices: “Our goal is to make the finest teas of Africa, and Gisovu, and Rugabano at our Rwanda operations, are ranked at the highest tiers of Africa,” he says, adding: “Last year, Rugabano had the highest price of all of Africa, and Gisovu was number two, and this year, Gisovu was number one, and Rugabano was number two. Also, Sorwathe got the best Orthodox prize at the NATC. So, all this fits in with Luxmi’s goal of making the best teas, wherever we have tea plantations.”
Chatterjee notes that this ethos is in keeping with the reputation of Makaibari in Darjeeling, known for making among the finest Darjeeling teas in the world, and Luxmi’s winning “Best CTC in the World” (also at World Expo’s Global Tea Championship, this year). He concludes that the company wants to leave a footprint of excellence wherever it treads.
Rugabano’s success is all the more remarkable given that it was a greenfield project not too long ago, in which Siverback Tea Company established new factories and the planted thousands of hectares of new tea.
Currently, all the tea at Luxmi’s Rwandan plantations is plucked by hand. It’s one of the key elements to maintaining high quality leaf, particularly in their orthodox tea offerings. However, to improve efficiency at season’s end, they have mechanized pruning.
Moreover, in Rwanda, Chatterjee says “It probably has the best model when it comes to impact.” Here he refers both to how plantation land has not interfered with the biodiversity of the total holdings of their subsidiary tea companies in the country as well as how their system of management offers highest returns to farmers. “Some of that land could be, in our case, 200 hectares or 400 hectares [for cultivation]. But the catchment area is 2,000 hectares.”
Catchment planning involves capturing and manage rainwater effectively, implementing measures like contour drains and planting cover crops to mitigate soil erosion – a significant issue in hilly tea-growing regions. Essentially, the catchment acts as a management boundary used by tea growers and researchers to implement integrated natural resource management practices at a micro-level, ensuring sustainable tea production
Through its Rwanda subsidiaries, Luxmi’s system of working in partnership with the smallholder farmers benefits both the company and the farmers. “So, basically, the farmers in the catchment area provide the tea to the factory. If the factory gets high prices for the tea, then the farmers get high prices for the tea. This type of revenue sharing makes the best impact, taking teas from the farmers, helping them make high-quality tea, fetching highest prices, leaving the farmers very well off,” says Chatterjee.
Boosting the incomes and livelihoods of thousands of smallholder tea farmers is also achieved by providing agronomic training, interest-free credit, seedlings, and logistical support through the Rugabano Outgrowers Services Company (ROS).
Working with UNICEF for Early Childhood Development
The company’s engagement with the local population does not begin and end with the farmers: they are intimately involved in the betterment of the community, so the population that lives around their estates progresses in ways they otherwise wouldn’t. A prime example of this lies in the Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centers established by Luxmi in Rwandan tea growing areas and run by a partnership between Luxmi Estates and the Wood Foundation Africa. Run as a joint venture that co-owns Silverback Tea Company, the partnership combines Luxmi Tea's expertise in tea production and quality focus with The Wood Foundation's venture philanthropic approach, which aims to drive economic development and improve livelihoods for smallholder farmers, their families, and the surrounding community.
One of the key objectives of Luxmi Estates’ partnership with Wood Foundation Africa is to focus on initiatives that help children reach their full potential and flourish, and early childhood care and development is seen as the foundation of achieving this objective.
Chatterjee mentions that there are 17 ECD Centers that operate in conjunction with UNICEF to provide pre-primary services and care for infants and young children of tea farm and factory workers. Prior to the establishment of these centres, the tea pluckers (who are basically women) had to leave their babies either at home alone or close to the tea plantation almost totally unsupervised. While the wages from their work are sufficient to feed, clothe, and educate their children, it is not enough to hire childcare. Hence, the EDC Centers fulfill an urgent need for the workers.
Silverback Tea Company recently won the “Gold Trophy and certification under the RS 560:2023 Gender Equality Standard,” and is ranked by Rwanda Women’s Magazine as one of the top five employers in the country for women.
Munyao says the partnership with the Wood Foundation has its roots in Luxmi’s ethos, which is progressive – but they first had to establish themselves in Rwanda. He notes that Luxmi Tea Company Pvt. Ltd. was established in 1912 by P.C. Chatterjee, a fierce advocate of Indian independence from the British Raj who saw the development of domestic tea production by Indians as a means of shifting reliance from colonizer to colonized – and later, independent citizens. He was succeeded by his son Dipankar Chatterjee who remains Chairman of the Luxmi Group but by 2017, the concern was reinvigorated a decade after the next generation in Rudra Chatterjee began to run the company as managing director, taking their forward-thinking ethos outside of India and setting their sights on Rwanda.
“So, Mr. Chatterjee, in discussions with the team, decided that they needed to look at opportunities in Africa, and they realized that Rwanda was opening up new tea-growing areas. So, they came and pitched, and actually won the bid to establish a tea project in one of the regions of Rwanda called Rugabano. And they started developing the area for tea,” Munyao recounts.
He adds: “While they were doing this, they discovered that in the Rwandan space, there was an established player called the Wood Foundation, who are a venture philanthropic group with a stated mandate of eliminating or reducing rural poverty. And they had picked up tea as a cash crop that they can leverage to reduce rural poverty in Rwanda. So, it was much made in heaven!”
It served as an opportunity to continue using tea as a means of uplifting the circumstances of local colonial and post-colonial peoples.
Munyao describes Silverback Tea Company Ltd. as a fourfold operation. First Luxmi had won the bid to develop Rugabano. Later, the partnership then called African Tea Investments Ltd. (which was a legacy name coming from the Wood Foundation) acquired a privatized concern of McLeod Russel, which held Gisovu and Pfunda estates.
To write a new chapter in their story, the name of the company was changed to Silverback Tea Company to pay tribute to the Silveback gorilla, which is a very powerful symbol in Africa. It travels the ecosystem consisting of a small part of the Congo (where, according to Munyao, it is unsafe to visit) Rwanda, and Uganda. Much tourism to Rwanda is owed to this majestic beast, and each year funds are raised to conserve the habitats where they roam.
Last year, the Luxmi Group bought Sorwathe factory and estate from a pioneer of the Rwandan tea industry, namely, Tea Importers Inc., owned by Joe & Andrew Wertheim who were called by the government to establish a tea estate. Their father, Joseph had founded Sorwathe against type in Africa, cultivating orthodox and green tea instead of making CTC. Created in 1975, after nearly 50 years in operation, the brothers wanted to sell their majority stake in the company to a buyer, which had established clearly demonstrable roots in the tea industry, and among the contenders, Luxmi Tea Co. Pvt. Ltd. best fit that criterion.
“So, what we loosely call Luxmi Operations Rwanda is looking after 4 businesses. And I'm fortunate enough to be head of those operations,” Munyao proclaims.
Rwandan Tea as a Quality Brand
In a sea of African tea, branding has become critically important to the recognition of Luxmi’s tea cultivation in Rwanda. As Chatterjee explains: “The key aspect is: we want to make sure that Rwanda's not just an ingredient supplier but making tea, which is sold branded as ‘made in Rwanda,’” he says, elaborating: “We were able to showcase and promote our Rwandan teas in the Marrakesh tea exhibition, which Nzeki [Nzkegi Munyao, CEO of Silverback Tea Company] went for recently. Nzeki's also head of running those branded tea offerings from Rwanda. So, how to brand Rwandan teas, effectively, so that people recognize that they're drinking pure Rwandan teas, which are of very high quality is something with which we are deeply involved.”
Munyao concurs: “So, after the unfortunate and regrettable events of the genocide, in the 2000s, privatization and modernization is going on [sic.] because the mandate [from the government] was, you take it, you modernize it. But now, in… from the 2010s. the last, I would say, 12, 13, 14 years, the drive has been to be the best in Africa. So, quality, global recognition – of course, sustainability comes without saying – but really, now, the push is towards branding Rwandan Tea as a product from Rwanda so that global recognition gains traction,” Munyao says.
The recent emergence of Rwandan tea at tea conventions, conferences, and competitions is evidence of Luxmi’s drive towards creating a distinctive brand in Rwandan tea that can stand on its own and bely comparisons to tea from other African nations, Kenyan tea in particular because of its export volume and recognition in the marketplace.
Munyao says one of the most important concepts he learned from the Luxmi Group Chairman, Dipankar Chatterjee is that, rather than far having a shortage of supply of tea in the market there is oversupply. “But good quality tea is far from abundant,” Munyao mentions, adding “So, we cannot afford to find ourselves just in the middle of the pack. We have to always aim at quality, and aim to be among the top gardens, which is something that, I'm happy to say we've, we've achieved this year to date. Rugabano is currently ahead in the rankings in Africa, in the Mombasa auction. It's also number one in Rwanda.”
Munyao says that local influencers on platforms like TikTok are beginning to focus on tea but there is only so much they can do to promote Rwandan tea because the USP is in its flavor. “We need quality tea to be placed in front of people, so that after they take it, they can ask for a second cup and a third cup. The minute you give people something horrible, they'll just move out of it immediately. They'll say, if this is what you call tea, I'm out of there. I'm not interested!”
Tea Tourism in Rwanda
While people come to Africa mainly to see the wildlife, one of the aspects of Luxmi’s operations that has crosspollinated to Rwanda is tea tourism. So, Sorwathe has built a guesthouse for people interested in staying at tea gardens in Africa. It’s a far cry from the opulence of the Taj Group’s Chiabari at Makaibari estate in Darjeeling – but it’s a start.
Munyao envisions a period in the future in which people will come and pluck their own tea, watch it being made, and then enjoy it at their holiday residence – all the while taking in the view of The Land of A Thousand Hills. This is the what he would like people to think of when they envision Rwanda.
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