Have you ever
stopped to wonder where tea comes from and how it gets to your lips? Having spent the past 6 months in tea country
in the South Rift, I finally took a tour of the nearest tea factory to discover
just how the tea I’ve been consuming numerous times each day, comes to be a
tasty drink from the plants in the plantations.
The Mogogosiek Tea
Factory, just down the road from where I stay, was established in 1884 and is
just one of 65 factories of the Kenya Tea Development Association (KTDA). Unlike the large British-owned tea estates of
Unilever, Sasini, and James Finlay in the area, the factory is owned 100% by a
group of 22,000 small scale farmer. Six
directors elected by the farmers oversee the factory’s operations and 150
workers. The factory is ISO certifies;
complying with food safety regulations.
Mogogosiek Tea Factory’s set processing capacity is 15 million kilograms
of tea per year; however, they are exceeding that by 7 million kilograms
annually. Tea is Kenya’s highest foreign
exchange earner, with 86% of the tea that is produced being exported. The United Kingdom is the biggest importer of
Kenyan tea, while Egypt, Pakistan, India and Somalia are also important
consumers.
Once inside the
large iron gate, Gladys (one of my Kenyan sisters) and I were taken to an
office where we met a manager and were each served a cup of black tea mixed
with milk. We were given a white lab
coat and white caps to wear for a tour. After
a satisfying taste of tea, we were met by a worker, Wesley, who was to give us
a tour. He did an excellent job, as he
was very knowledgeable and also patient to answer questions.
Wesley began by
leading us out of the offices outside to the Reception Area where the large
banana-crème colored trucks carrying 240 brown sisal bags of tea leaves were
pulling up to deposit their leaves. At
this point, workers unhooked the bags from the trucks and hook them onto a
humming monorail, which reminded me of a miniature ski lift to transport the
leaves to where 76 troughs were waiting.
The purposes of
the troughs are to be used for sorting and wilting the tea leaves. Leaves that are not in combinations of two
leaves and a bud, are rejected and must be resorted. Tea accepted by the Mogogosiek Tea Factory
may only be handpicked, not cut by machines as in some larger estates.
After sorting, the
tea is left in other troughs to wilt.
The green leaves are spread quickly by one person in the troughs,
followed up by another person who is more attentive and careful to spread the
leaves evenly so that they wilt at an equal rate. The withering area is warm as the troughs are treated with steam
underneath. Fans rotating clockwise pump
steam into the troughs, while they can be switched to run counterclockwise to
suck steam. After 2-3 hours the tea
wilts to 67.5% of its original water capacity and is now ready to be cut and
fermented. It is transported from the
Withering Area to the Processing Area via a conveyor in between the
troughs.
Down below, in the
processing area, weighing scales controlled by a computerized machine,
determine how quickly the tea is processed.
At the time we were there, they were cutting approximately 3500
kilograms of tea per hour. The method of
tea processing used in the Mogogosiek Tea Factory is known as CTC (Crush/Cut,
Tear, Can). The withered leaves are cut
three times, becoming finer with each cut and filling the area with a strong
scent similar to that of cut grass.
After being crushed and cut, it goes through the fermentation process,
where the color changes gradually from a bright green to a medium brown. The Continuous Fermenting Unit (CFU) is the
machine used to ferment the tea leaves.
It s controlled by a thermometer and produces a noisy sound, similar to
that of a diesel engine, although it runs on electricity. Until 2009, the CFU was run manually by 90
workers, who then lost their jobs when the electric machine was
introduced. The tea is cut once more in
its brown state if it has too much tanine.
After running through the fermentation stage for a second time, the tea
moves along a conveyer belt to the drier where it remains for 1 – 1.5
hours.
In the Boiler
Area, our eyes stung with dust, but we were thankful for the dust masks to help
keep us from ingesting the dust. The
drying machines transport the tea to this area sounding of squeaky machines and
the drone of a loud motor. The tea just
arriving at the mouth of the driers is warm and full of fibers. A fibro screen is a machine that is then used
to remove the fibers by rolling them out and shaking the seeds down. This is repeated as often as necessary until
the tea is free of dirt and fibers. The
tea is then presorted according to grade, containing sees of differ sizes. The grade of tea can be adjusted by the time
that it spends in the Processing Area.
The larger the seeds, the higher the grade meaning that Grade 1 tea,
having the largest seeds, is most often used for export, while the finer grains
of lower quality are used locally. The
fourth grade known as Dust 1, is extremely fine like powdered sugar. Something looking like a winnower is used to
clean the tea before it is moved to bins, which are large storage
facilities. The large metal bins read
BP, PF1, PP, and D1 according to the grade of tea they are.
From the bins, the
tea is moved to the Packing Section, where there are packers, forming boxes,
and paper sacks which are labeled by grade and weigh 68 kilograms. After the bags are weighed once more, they
are sealed and loaded into trucks to be taken to a warehouse.
Finally, we
proceeded past a storage facility of old tires, scrap metal, plastic and waste
paper to the Boiler Section: the heartbeat of the factory. The steam boilers are fueled by wood, usually
from Blue Gum trees. 100m3 is
used daily on average to keep the boilers running. The tea factory owns 63 acres of land on
which it grows blue gum trees for its own use.
After 10 years, trees can be cut and used in the boilers. There are workers constantly throwing in logs
and stoking the fire, and adjusting the fans to control the heat. Three large square water tanks are used to
supply the two boilers with water. From
the boilers comes a droning sound with a singing noise approximately every 8
seconds. A very tall chimney waits
nearby, sending the smoke far up into the air.
At the end of our
tour we were taken to the shed where fuel wood is brought by large yellow Isuzu
trucks and cut by chainsaws and stored as it dries. Six men work together cutting and throwing
the logs by hand during eight hour shifts.
Nearby sat a small red trackor and wooden trailer, as our nostrils
filled with the smell of dust.
We finished by
going to the test-tasting unite where tea is taken from each of the areas in
the factory and tasted before being shipped to the coastal city of Mombasa for
further testing. The tea is mixed with
river water for test tasting so as to not have any minerals in it.
After learning all
this, tasting tea and finding out the 1 kilogram of green leaves produces ¼ kg
of tea, I now look at the nearby plantations and estates and the tea in my cup
with amazement.
