SatemwaTea Estate
Thyolo, Malawi, Africa
Satemwa Tea Estate
Grower: Satemwa Tea Estate
Tea Maker: Alexander Catchart Kay
Source: Thyolo Town in the Shire Highlands of Thyolo District in Malawi, Africa
Elevation: 1150m (Approximately 3,775 ft)
Cultivation: Conventional (Pesticide-free, with herbicide use)
Tea: Malawi Rolled Oolong
A 3rd Generation Tea Farming Family.
Satemwa Tea Estate is one of the last independent farms in Malawi – family run and not owned or managed by agribusiness.
Established in 1923, Satemwa’s third generation tea maker, Alexander Kay has been crafting and cultivating their teas with love and passion for his artisanal tea. In the nearly 100 years that Satemwa has been cultivating tea plants, they have made it a priority to improve the standard of living for their employees and their families.
Satemwa is Community.
Satemwa Tea Estate is a trailblazer in Malawi to ensure the health and improvement of their tea workers’ lives. As part of Satemwa’s social responsibility program, they are able to provide a number of welfare services, which are available to both the estate’s staff and workers, and their families.
Satemwa has great community programs: The Satemwa Medical Clinic, a primary school, community policing, a soccer team, aprogram to protect the nearby forest and wildlife. Satemwa also developing different solar and energy saving initiatives to save reduce firewood use in the processing of their teas.
Producing Unique Teas.
From their unique terroir, Satemwa is able to produce some unique orthodox white, green, oolong, black and dark teas. Experimenting with different local cultivars and playing around with some traditional and new processing techniques, with trial and error and loads of tasting, they have produced great and unusual teas. The typical cultivars, the unique climate and the specialized processing techniques make these teas exceptional. They are also Fair Trade Certified, UTZ+ and Rain Forest Alliance Certified
Environmental Sustainability.
Satemwa has a wide array of diverse crops, enriching the biodiversity of the farm – tea, coffee, hibiscus, mints, lemongrass, lemon verbena, peppers and many species of trees for shade, fuel and building materials.
They share the seedlings with local smallholders to provide valuable income and diversification.
They ferment organic fertilizers to enrich the soil.
They have a large nursery project. for shade trees – they give away to neighbors to provide shade, biodiversity and soil stability and structure against flooding.
Protected areas of ancient indigenous forest provide migrations routes and essential habitats for many species of flora and fauna included bountiful bird life.
They have herds of cows roaming the forest floors and the herb rich paths between the tea fields. They provide milk and food for the community and what they leave behind is used to further enrich the land.
Georgia probably isn’t on your short list of countries that produce world-class teas. You’ve probably never had Georgian tea—or even knew it was grown there. And we’re not talking the U.S. state of Georgia, but rather the Republic of Georgia that sits on the far-eastern boarder of Europe. nestled between Russia, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
But tea from Georgia? Here’s how it happened.
Social Sustainability.
Almost all the people of Satemwa are employed year round. Where many plantations rely on seasonal workers, providing no community or long term stability, Satemwa has a different approach. They are rewarded with a stable and highly skilled farm able to produce some of the very best tea in Africa.
Their emphasis is on handcrafting and skilled work rather than mechanisation. This provides more and better jobs as well as produces far better quality leaf and finished tea. Machine harvesting and processing might produce cheaper tea but at too high a cost to the community and quality of the tea.
Economic Sustainability.
Satemwa, like many private tea farms, is reliant on selling low value tea for teabags through a series of brokers because that’s where the biggest market is. It’s not a supply problem, it’s a demand problem. It’s what most people drink.
In recent years, tea consumers have become more aware of the challenges of family tea farmers, and demand for higher quality tea, sold at reasonable prices, supplied directly from the family farms and their community has been increasing.
The Chai House mission to streamline the journey of tea from crop to cup, helps improve not only the lives of small family tea farmers, but everyone in their communities, as well.
