Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Tea Time

I visited one of the tea growing regions of Kenya, recently. It was located about two hours north of Nairobi, past Thika and near the start of the lush Aberdare Mountain range. The tea plants grow on steep hillsides at elevations that are over 2,000 meters above sea level. The leaves are shiny and emerald green. When it’s sunny, the fields practically sparkle.

Kenya, it turns out, is one of the world’s leading tea producers, just behind China, India, and Sri Lanka. Who knew? I didn’t. But then, I’m more of a coffee drinker.

Like a lot of other people, prior to coming to Kenya, the images I had involved golden savannahs populated with zebra, wildebeests, and gazelles hotly pursued by lions and cheetahs.

But Kenya is really quite diverse geographically. Yes, there are deserts in the north, savannahs in the south, and the Great Rift Valley in the center. But there are also lush, green forests with moss-strewn trees and giant ferns straight out of Jurassic Park. There are volcanic peaks, mangrove swamps, and long white beaches. There are steep hills covered with patchworks of crops such as beans, potatoes, maize, coffee – and tea.

My outing consisted of a group of 5 Kenyans, 4 Mexicans, and 2 Italians. There was also a Dane, a Portuguese, his Brazilian girlfriend, and me. (Britt was nursing a sore heel and couldn’t join us.) Our lack of familiarity with tea production united us – as did our pleasure at enjoying the great Kenyan outdoors.

We learned about tea planting and picking. We discovered that though the plants look like thick bushes, they are actually trees that are kept trimmed to waist height. They are vegetatively propagated (like potatoes and sweetpotatoes), meaning they are grown from plant cuttings and not from seeds. They thrive in the Kenyan highlands, naturally resisting most pests and disease – at least for the time being (climate change notwithstanding).

We tried our hand at picking tea leaves. Though the plants are thick with them, you are just supposed to gather the top two. And this, while balancing an awkwardly round basket on your back and making your way through the dense branches and steep incline, is harder than it looks. Professional pickers fill numerous baskets each day, working from 6 am to 6 pm for a pay of about $5 a day. That doesn’t sound like much, but is considerably more than the $1.5/day poverty rate.

We drank cups of hot tea and visited a tea factory, watching the steps as the green leaves were pulverized, dried, and turned into the stuff you buy at the store.

 

By the end of the process, workers were heaving 75 kg bags of tea onto trucks for destinations worldwide. Where they might end up ultimately, I don’t know. But I can tell you the journey begins on hilly, windy dirt roads filled with the gigantic ruts and potholes that you find all over Kenya – especially during the rainy seasons (Apr-Jun, Oct-Nov).

It is amazing to see where tea originates and to think of all the forms and meanings it engenders. There’s high tea, tea ceremony, tea parties (some charming, some not) and tea for the tillerman. Tea is equated with philosophy and religion, with comfort and quenched thirst. It comes up in politics and even in poetry.

 Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of toast and tea
    T.S. Eliot



No comments:

Post a Comment