Our first outing was to see the many beautiful tea plantations near Nairobi. Our driver, John, took us to a smaller (80acre) tea plantation owned and run by a third generation white Kenyan, Christopher, don't remember his last name. Along the road, we stopped and spoke to these tea pickers above and there were happy to have their photo taken. There are just fields and fields covered in tea bushes. It's absolutely breathtaking.
Chris was a wealth of information. He was very generous with not only his families history, but the history of Kenya. His family came to Kenya from the UK in the early 1900s. He studied at Oxford and worked in London for some time, but as he put it, "Africa is in his blood", so he eventually returned and took up the family business. Christopher does not just farm tea, he also has greenhouses for growing roses and other flowers for florists in Europe and Kenya. He explained that the floral business was quite lucrative at one time, but it's a little like the stock market, you almost need to be able to see into the future to know what to grow and what will be the new trend or hot item. Currently he grows roses (above) and calla lillies (below left).
After showing us around his greenhouses and explaining the process involved on the floral side of his business, he then drove us around his farm to show us more about the tea process. All of the tea is picked by hand, and it is only the new sprouts that have two leaves and a budding third that are a good pick. Every five years, the tea bushes are cut back to allow for new growth. His laborers are paid by the kilo and because of some recent rains, they have been working up to 12 - 16 hours a day to keep up with the new growth. Which also means, they are making better wages right now. He shared that in USD, a good picker can earn about $3.00 a day. It doesn't sound like a lot to us, but it's actually quite good for a tea picker. The image above right shows a group of his pickers that are coming for the day to have their baskets inspected and weighed. This is only the first of two weighing processes. The second is done at the factory and is how the pickers are actually paid, the scale used in the field is not always as accurate. The laborers empty out their baskets to be inspected by the foreman, to make sure they aren't picking branches, leaves that are too mature, or anything that might add weight to the basket that isn't part of the tea bush. Then the leaves are put into bags that are hung on the scale and weighed.
Some of Chris's pickers have been doing this for as long as 13 years. One of his oldest pickers, he called "Mama". Chris easily moves between English and Swahili. Following the visit to see his pickers at the end of their day, he showed us where he is now looking to develop the land he owns into residences on approximately one acre lots. He feels that his time in Kenya is running out, due to the explosion in population and the current and future political climate, so developing the land and selling it off will allow him to move on when the time comes.
Chris's farm/plantation is surrounded on three sides by a much larger corporation owned tea farm. The image below is a view of part of this other farm and their factory. The tea making process is a fairly simple one and is done daily. The tea is withered, fermented, dried and packaged. Most, almost all of Kenya's tea was exported, but recently, some is actually now remaining in the country and being enjoyed by locals. At the end of our tour, Chris welcomed us into his families home for some...you guessed it...tea. Proper tea with milk, sugar, and biscuits. It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon and our first day in Kenya.
